This feels like one of those trap-game spots for the New England Patriots. They’ve gone 10 days between games after last playing on Thursday Night Football. They're traveling to Florida to face a 1-5 Miami Dolphins team that fields the NFL’s youngest roster. On deck next week is an intriguing home game against the 5-3 Green Bay Packers.
Head coach Mike Vrabel has done his best to stress the importance of this divisional game on the road. Whether his players receive that message remains to be seen.
Historically, these early-season trips to Florida to play the Dolphins haven’t been slam dunks for the Patriots. They won at Miami last year, but that broke a five-game skid at Hard Rock Stadium.
“They'll go on the ball a little bit,” Vrabel said of Miami’s tempo in the Florida heat. “I'm not sure, but we have to be conditioned. I think the better that we play, the more we possess the ball, the fresher we'll stay defensively. Hopefully we get the receivers into a rotation. The backs, we rotate. I don't think that the offensive linemen will necessarily rotate. We may play a couple guys based on who's available. That remains to be seen. The edge guys, we rotate. We try to rotate along the defensive line. We like to have our best players available to help us win.”
The Patriots are a touchdown road favorite in a game that could be played in tropical, rainy weather.
Here are five Dolphins players the Patriots definitely shouldn’t take lightly as they look to climb to 3-0 in the AFC East.
Miami's 1-5 record doesn't tell the whole story entering Week 8
Edge defender Chop Robinson
The Patriots have done a solid job against high-end pass rushers like Maxx Crosby, T.J. Watt, and Greg Rousseau this season. Robinson represents another test.
The 2024 first-round pick only has two sacks on the season, but according to Next Gen Stats, he leads the NFL with a 23.4% pressure rate among defenders with at least 100 pass-rush snaps.
Running back Ollie Gordon
The Dolphins were expected to be cooked offensively after De’Von Achane went down with a season-ending injury, but the emergence of Miami’s rushing attack behind second-year back Ollie Gordon has been impossible to ignore.
Over the past three weeks, only the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have rushed for more than Miami’s 164.7 per-game average as a team. Gordon has been at the forefront, rushing for 291 yards and three touchdowns over that span.
Wide receiver Malik Washington
The Dolphins didn’t bring in a big-name wide receiver like A.J. Brown this offseason, but they have some young weapons who have a knack for making explosive plays.
Washington is one of those players. The third-year pro already has 34 touches on offense for the Dolphins this year, and Vrabel stressed how big of a problem he can be when he catches the ball in space.
“He had a 74-yarder against us last year,” Vrabel lamented this week.
Inside linebackers Jordyn Brooks and Jacob Rodriguez
This could be the key matchup for the Patriots, especially if they’re forced to play this game without Brown. During last week’s game against the Bears, Drake Maye funnelled his targets mostly to the running backs and tight ends. That could be tougher to pull off against Miami, which deploys one of the game’s most dangerous inside linebacker tandems in Brooks and Rodriguez.
#Patriots OC Josh McDaniels points to how well the Dolphins defense punches the ball out, calling LBs Jacob Rodriguez and Jordyn Brooks “elite” at the peanut punch.
— Evan Lazar (@ezlazar) October 29, 2026
Both players enter Week 8 among the NFL’s top 25 in total tackles. Rodriguez, a second-round rookie, has flashed NFL-ready instincts with 28 stops, per Pro Football Focus. Brooks was a first-team All-Pro in 2025.
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