Miami often is no fun in the sun for the Patriots

The Patriots have struggled over the years in Miami with Bill Belichick's Pats teams going 8-10 down there.

FOXBORO – The plug hadn’t yet been pulled on the Gillette Stadium scoreboard – it still burnt brightly last Sunday night, reading: New England 24, Minnesota 10 – and Julian Edelman’s thoughts were already turning to Miami.

“I feel like we left a lot out there, but we’ve got to get better and we’ve got to go to Miami, a place that we struggle, and get a win,” Edelman said. “So that’s what we’re going to be doing.”

The veteran wide receiver knows of what he speaks.

For all their glory, the Patriots of the Bill Belichick-Tom Brady era have indeed struggled at the stadium now known as Hard Rock.

It isn’t close to approaching the “Orange Bowl Jinx” – 18 straight losses at the original home of the Dolphins – but the Patriots’ fortunes at the facility that opened as Joe Robbie Stadium and subsequently called Pro Player Park, Pro Player Stadium, Dolphins Stadium, Dolphin Stadium, Land Shark Stadium and Sun Life Stadium haven’t been good during the Belichick-Brady era. They can change the name, but the result has often remained the same – and that hasn’t been good for the team from Foxboro. When the Patriots have gone south, they’ve often gone south.

The 9-3 Patriots head into this Sunday’s game with the 6-6 Dolphins at Hard Rock Stadium (when a win or tie would clinch them their 10th straight AFC East division championship and make them the first franchise in NFL history to earn a playoff berth in 10 consecutive seasons) having gone 8-10 with Belichick in control on the sidelines, 7-9 with Brady under center.

In a preview of coming attractions, Brady suffered his first loss as the Patriots’ starting QB at Miami on Sept. 30, 2001, turning in an utterly forgettable performance in completing 12 passes in 24 attempts for just 86 yards with neither a touchdown nor an interception (but four sacks) in compiling a woeful passer rating of 58.7 in a one-sided loss (30-10) to the Dolphins.

Remember Dec. 20, 2004?

Brady would rather forget it, a Monday night game that saw a 2-11 Dolphins team rally from an 11-point deficit late in the game by scoring two touchdowns in the final 2:07 to come away with a 29-28 victory, the winning score coming when the quarterback uncharacteristically panicked and tried to fling a desperation pass while under pressure from defensive end Jason Taylor. Linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo was a willing recipient of Brady’s third of fourth interceptions in the game, one that set up a 21-yard game-winning strike from A.J. Feeley to Derrius Thompson with 1:23 to go.

Most recently, the Patriots have lost four of their last five at Miami, including a 27-20 decision on Dec. 11 of last year in a Monday night game when Brady’s passer rating (59.5) barely exceeded his passing percentage (55.8) as he threw two of the eight interceptions he tossed in 2017 and saw his all-time record in December and January in Miami dip to 2-6.

Safety Devin McCourty’s assessment of the Patriots’ play in Miami down through the years?

“We’ve just (stunk),” McCourty, who’s in his ninth year with the team, said. “Honestly, to me, they’re a really good football team. You watch that Monday night game from last year, from beginning to end, they just outplayed us in every aspect of the game. We’ve had other games down there where it went down to the end. … We know Miami’s a good football team. We just have to be prepared and ready to go.”

The Patriots haven’t consistently been ready to go on the road this season. Unbeaten at home (6-0, including a 38-7 laugher over the Dolphins on Sept. 30), they are a .500 team (3-3) on the road and have yet to come close to turning in a legitimate 60-minute performance, a topic the head coach has no doubt brought up a time or few at Gillette Stadium this week.

“He reminds us of everything,” said McCourty. “We haven’t played well on the road. So this is on the road. Trust me. He’s gotten on us about that.”

Along with the heat Belichick is putting on them this week, the Patriots will have to deal with the heat in Miami this weekend. The weather.com forecast for Sunday is calling for it to be 81 degrees with a 60-percent chance of scattered thunderstorms in southeastern Florida, 46 degrees hotter than the projected high of 35 in Foxboro that day.

James White (hometown: Fort Lauderdale, Fla.), for one, wants to hear nothing of the talk that the meteorologist is the Dolphins’ 12th man.

“Everybody knows it’s going to be a lot hotter than what it is here,” the Patriots running back said. “It’s going to be pretty humid. (You’ve) just got to hydrate and you just can’t let it affect you. You’ve still got to go out there and play football, just got to deal with all the elements.”

Still, there’s no denying the fact that, like the Patriots, the Dolphins have been two different teams this year, their .500 record the result of a 1-5 record on the road, a 5-1 mark at home.

No need to remind safety Patrick Chung of those numbers.

“They play good at home,” said Chung. “They’re 5-1 at home, 1-5 on the road. So it’s two totally different teams. They’re a good team regardless. They have a lot of good players, explosive players. They’re dealing with some injuries, but they’re still a good team and they’re at home and they’re going to be ready for us.”