NFL Notes: Why can’t the Patriots win in Miami? They can’t explain it

Mike Onwenu couldn t remember Maybe that was for the best Three years ago the Patriots spent a week in South Florida ahead of their season opener against the Dolphins Bill Belichick camped the crew at Palm Beach Atlantic University a private Christian school that competes at the Division II level Because Palm Beach Atlantic doesn t have a football plan the Pats practiced on soccer fields with makeshift field goal posts Everything that week was built around the idea of eliminating the Dolphins homefield advantage their players natural acclimation to the overwhleming heat and humidity The Patriots progress plans that week could be argued as the greatest lengths the franchise ever went to beat a division rival under Bill Belichick But only that s if you remember that week I think that was at a high school or something Onwenu revealed in front of his locker this week It was a while ago I think the time there was apparently helpful just in terms conditioning But I can t say what I remember leading up to that match or anything like that Well it didn t help The Pats got manhandled by Mother Nature and the Dolphins over a - loss played out under -degree temperatures Mac Jones was strip-sacked in the second quarter for a defensive touchdown the beginning of the end for the Bill Belichick era And yet losing in Miami felt all too familiar Hard Rock Stadium is a house of horrors for the Patriots dating back to their dynasty days Tom Brady went - as a starter in Miami The Pats are - at Hard Rock over the last dozen years None of their current players have won there while wearing red white and blue And none of them can explain it Not Onwenu the organization s longest-tenured competitor from the time he signed his first contract in May Not even ex-Dolphins receiver Mack Hollins - now in his first season with the Patriots I m not really sure Hollins stated Specific Patriots losses in stand alone as inexplicable as they were stunning Patriots-Dolphins injury document Christian Gonzalez out Morgan Moses questionable for Sunday This file is auto-generated function d l use strict l querySelector d addEventListener undefined typeof URL d wp d wp d wp receiveEmbedMessage d wp receiveEmbedMessage function e var t e material if t t secret t message t value a-zA-Z - test t secret for var s r n a l querySelectorAll 'iframe data-secret ' t secret ' ' o l querySelectorAll 'blockquote data-secret ' t secret ' ' c new RegExp https i i i