Rallying from its worst half of the season, New England (12-3) scored on its next five possessions to clinch a playoff bye.

“You don’t want to, certainly, make a habit of this,” said quarterback Tom Brady, who scored on two 1-yard sneaks and threw for a 1-yard touchdown. “We showed some resiliency.”

Miami (5-10) lost for the third time in eight games.

The Patriots trailed 17-0 at halftime but made adjustments and went to their no-huddle offense more, keeping the Dolphins from making defensive substitutions. And Brady was on target after a first half in which heavy defensive pressure against a makeshift offensive line affected his accuracy. He completed just 7 of 19 passes for 87 yards and was sacked three times in the half. But in the second half, he completed 20 of 27 passes for 217 yards.

Miami          3          14          0          7–24

New England          0          0          17          10–27

FIRST QUARTER

Mia — FG Carpenter 47, 10:59.

SECOND QUARTER

Mia — Marshall 19 pass from Mat.Moore (Carpenter kick), 13:45.

Mia — Clay 1 pass from Mat.Moore (Carpenter kick), 6:31.

THIRD QUARTER

NE — FG Gostkowski 45,

11:39.

NE — Branch 1 pass from Brady (Gostkowski kick), 7:10.

NE — Brady 1 run (Gostkowski kick), 2:17.

FOURTH QUARTER

NE — FG Gostkowski 42, 8:55.

NE — Brady 1 run (Gostkowski kick), 2:56.

Mia — Bess 15 pass from Mat.Moore (Carpenter kick), 1:48.

         Mia          NE

First downs          20          26

Total Net Yards          381          400

Rushes-yards          27-115          31-119

Passing          266          281

Punt Returns          2-25          4-19

Kickoff Returns          3-73          3-83

Interceptions Ret.          0-0          1-0

Comp-Att-Int          17-33-1          27-46-0

Sacked-Yards Lost          5-28          4-23

Punts          6-44.8          6-52.3

Fumbles-Lost          4-1          1-0

Penalties-Yards          6-39          5-50

Time of Possession          29:04          30:56

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

Miami rushing — Bush 22-113, Thomas 2-3, Mat.Moore 3-(minus 1).

New England rushing — Ridley 13-64, Woodhead 4-20, Brady 9-17, Green-Ellis 3-10, Welker 1-7, Hernandez 1-1.

Miami passing — Mat.Moore 17-33-1-294.

New England passing — Brady 27-46-0-304.

Miami receiving — Marshall 7-156, Hartline 4-72, Bess 3-39, Bush 2-26, Clay 1-1.

New England receiving — Welker 12-138, Gronkowski 7-78, Hernandez 4-36, Branch 3-37, Ochocinco 1-15.

Missed field goals — New England, Gostkowski 51 (WL).

A — 68,756.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. —
The Dolphins have pretty much mastered the art of the collapse against the Patriots, each meltdown more vexing than the last.

There was the gruesome special teams collapse on a Monday night last season. The unspeakably awful defensive collapse in the season opener this year.

And on Saturday, there was a total collapse on both sides of the ball after intermission, erasing a 17-point Dolphins lead and resulting in a 27-24 loss that ensured Miami of double-digit defeats for the first time since 2007.

“Frustrating, but this whole season is frustrating,” Brandon Marshall said. “Immaturity. Stupid mistakes. Lack of execution. You can’t do that against this Patriots team.”

The Dolphins’ stunning 17-0 halftime cushion proved flimsy and fleeting, with Tom Brady and the Patriots needing less than 13 third-quarter minutes to tie the score. They went ahead for good on Stephen Gostkowski’s 42-yard field goal with nine minutes left in the game, then used a clock-draining drive to push the margin to 10.

Matt Moore’s 15-yard touchdown pass to Davone Bess with 1:48 left trimmed the Patriots’ lead to 27-24.

With three timeouts left, the Dolphins opted to kick deep, because interim coach Todd Bowles said the Patriots would have been close to field goal range if they had recovered an onside kick. But on third and five, Wes Welker caught a game-clinching first down.

“They wanted it more in the second half than we did,” Bowles said. “We didn’t play smart.”

The Patriots, who didn’t score on any of their seven first-half possessions, scored on their first five of the second half.

The Dolphins flustered and flummoxed Brady in the first half, holding him to a season-low 87 yards on 7 for 19 passing. But in the second half, Brady was 20 for 27 for 217 yards, finishing with 304 yards.

“They had guys running all over the place,” cornerback Will Allen said. “We didn’t have any blown assignments. They just made good plays.”

A Dolphins defense that generated three sacks in the first half produced only one (and not enough pressure) in the second. A defense that held NFL leading receiver Wes Welker to just two first half receptions (for 20 yards) allowed him to run free for 10 catches and 118 yards after intermission. Miami’s pass coverage and tackling also weren’t nearly as sharp after halftime.

“The only thing they did differently in the second half was using a little more no-huddle,” Yeremiah Bell said. “We didn’t have time to set our pressure package.”

But Bowles said, “We prepared for the no-huddle all week. It didn’t catch us off guard. They were throwing the ball underneath a little more.”

Safety Tyrone Culver said there was another issue: “They switched up a lot of things with their routes and a lot of things they have not really done and shown before.”

As the Patriots rallied, the Dolphins’ offense went dormant.

Moore had a very good first half – 10 for 19, 179 yards and two touchdown passes. But he fumbled twice after halftime – losing one of them – threw an interception and passed for just 35 yards in the first 27 minutes of the second half, before his late touchdown drive.

“We stalled in the second half,” said Moore, who was sacked three times and harassed several other times in the second half, and sacked five times overall. At least one of the sacks was allowed by John Jerry, who replaced Jake Long when Long left in the first half with an arm injury.

The Dolphins gained just 21 yards in the third quarter and blew a 17-0 lead in less than 15 minutes as the New England Patriots rallied for a 27-24 win on Sunday.

“This one’s pretty tough,” said Reggie Bush, who ran for 113 yards on 22 carries.

Bush also surpassed 1,000 yards rushing in a season for the first time in his career, yet was in no mood to celebrate.

After gaining 255 yards in the first half, Miami (5-10) had just 126 in the second half and 80 of those came during a late touchdown drive as the Dolphins desperately tried to recover after bumbling their way through the third and most of the fourth quarters.

“We felt like we had the right game plan. We knew what we had to do, we just didn’t execute it for four quarters,” Bush said. “We made some mistakes on offense. That gets you beat playing against good teams like this.”

Both of Miami’s turnovers came in the second half and the pressure it had gotten on New England’s Tom Brady early was gone.

Brady shook off a poor start and passed for 304 yards and a touchdown. He also had a pair of 1-yard TDs rushing as the Patriots once again looked like contenders for the top seed in the AFC with one scoring drive after another.

“We stalled there a little bit in the second half. You can’t do that against a team like this,” said Matt Moore, who completed 17 of 33 passes for 294 yards and three touchdowns for Miami.

New England opened the second half with a drive for a field goal to cut Miami’s lead to 17-3, then got the ball right back when Moore fumbled a snap and Vince Wilfork pounced on it for the Patriots.

That led to a touchdown pass from Brady to Deion Branch to get New England within 17-10 with 7:10 left in the third quarter and New England’s defense kept up the pressure.

Moore was sacked for a loss of 10 on the first play after the kickoff, then sacked again at the 10-yard line on third down. The Dolphins’ punt from their end zone gave New England the ball at Miami’s 41 and the Patriots continued their surge, scoring on Brady’s 1-yard run to tie it at 17l with 2:17 still left in the third quarter.

“We put our defense on the short field too many times, which made it easy for them,” Bush said.

The Dolphins didn’t score at all in the second half until Moore threw a 15-yard touchdown pass to Davone Bess, pulling Miami within a field goal with 1:48 left to play. The Dolphins still had all three timeouts, but that no longer mattered when Brady converted on third-and-5 with a pass to Wes Welker, who had 12 catches for 138 yards.

New England (12-3) won its seventh straight game. After the Houston Texans lost to the Indianapolis Colts on Thursday night, the Patriots needed a win or a tie to lock up one of the top two spots in the AFC.

Miami lost for the third time in eight games after opening 0-7 and is 1-1 under Todd Bowles, who took over when Tony Sparano was fired.

“The guys fought, but we didn’t finish,” Bowles said. “We didn’t stop them and we didn’t get points.”

The Dolphins seemed headed for a victory and got a break even before the game started when Patriots left tackle Matt Light hurt his ankle in warm-ups and didn’t play. Left guard Logan Mankins took his spot, but he left with a knee injury suffered on New England’s second series.

Their absence showed as the Dolphins kept pressuring Brady. He completed just 7 of 19 passes for 87 yards and was sacked three times in the half. But once the third quarter began, Brady and the Patriots — both their offense and defense — looked completely different starting with the very first play, a 22-yard completion to Rob Gronkowski.

Bush had another outstanding game for Miami with his fourth straight rushing day of at least 100 yards. He finished with 113 on 22 carries one week after gaining a career-high 203 yards.

The Dolphins had taken a 3-0 lead on Dan Carpenter’s 47-yard field goal 4:01 into the game and made it 10-0 with 1:15 gone in the second quarter on Moore’s 19-yard pass to Brandon Marshall.

They stretched that to 17-0, the Patriots’ biggest deficit of the season, on a 1-yard touchdown pass from Moore to Charles Clay. The 89-yard drive was helped by two defensive pass interference penalties on third down.

The Patriots punted on their first six possessions, then wasted a chance to score when Stephen Gostkowski’s 51-yard field goal attempt on the next to last play of the half went wide to the left.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP)—The New England Patriots emphasize playing well for
60 minutes every game. On Saturday, 30 was enough—barely.

Rallying from their worst half of the season, the Patriots scored on their
next five possessions and clinched a playoff bye with a 27-24 win over the Miami
Dolphins on Saturday.

“You don’t want to, certainly, make a habit of this,” said Tom Brady, who
scored on two 1-yard sneaks and threw for a 1-yard touchdown. “We showed some
resiliency.”

New England (12-3) won its seventh straight game. After the Houston Texans
lost to the Indianapolis Colts on Thursday night, the Patriots needed a win or a
tie to lock up one of the top two spots in the AFC.

“It’s good to clinch,” said Deion Branch, who caught the touchdown pass
from Brady, “but not by the way we played. It’s not the way you want to do
it.”

Miami (5-10) lost for the third time in eight games after opening at 0-7 and
is 1-1 under Todd Bowles, who took over when Tony Sparano was fired.

“First half we came out and played our tempo and our ballgame,” Bowles
said. “The second half they made us play theirs.”

The AFC East champions trailed 17-0 at halftime but made the necessary
adjustments and went to their no-huddle offense more, keeping the Dolphins from
making defensive substitutions. And Brady was on target after a first half in
which heavy defensive pressure against a makeshift offensive line affected his
accuracy. He completed just 7 of 19 passes for 87 yards and was sacked three
times in the half.

But in the second half, he completed 20 of 27 passes for 217 yards,
finishing at 27 for 46 for 304 yards and leading one scoring drive after another
— a 45-yard field goal by Stephen Gostkowski, the scoring pass to Branch, his
own sneak that tied the game, Gostkowski’s 42-yard go-ahead kick after Devin
McCourty’s first interception of the year, and the other sneak with 2:56 to go,
making it 27-17.

The Dolphins made it closer on Matt Moore’s 15-yard scoring pass to Davone
Bess with 1:48 to play. They had three timeouts left, but their hopes faded when
Brady hit Wes Welker for a 6-yard gain and a first down.

“We had (Brady’s) number in the first half, but in the second half he came
out and made a lot of plays,” Miami linebacker Karlos Dansby said. “He is a
coach on the field.”

The Dolphins seemed headed for a victory and got a break even before the
game started when Patriots left tackle Matt Light hurt his ankle in warmups and
didn’t play. Left guard Logan Mankins took his spot, but he left with a knee
injury suffered on New England’s second series.

“There’s always things that are going to go wrong in a football game and
things aren’t going to work out the way you want them to all the time,” said
Welker, who finished with 12 catches for 138 yards after managing just two for
20 in the first half. “The main thing is just playing a full 60 minutes and
never giving in and understanding that one drive and one score (can) get things
going.”

The Patriots punted on their first six series of the first half then missed
a field goal on the other. The Dolphins struggled in the second half when Moore
fumbled the snap at his 38-yard line and Vince Wilfork recovered, starting the
drive capped by Branch’s touchdown.

“They committed penalties in the first half,” Dolphins guard Richie
Incognito said. “We turned the ball over and committed penalties in the second
half. That is never a good recipe.”

Reggie Bush had another outstanding game for Miami with his fourth straight
rushing day of at least 100 yards. He finished with 113 on 22 carries one week
after gaining a career-high 203 yards.

His latest performance gave him 1,086 yards rushing for the season, the
first time in his six years, the first five with the New Orleans Saints, that he
passed 1,000.

“It really doesn’t mean anything right now,” he said. “This one’s pretty
tough.”

The Dolphins had taken a 3-0 lead on Dan Carpenter’s 47-yard field goal 4:01
into the game and made it 10-0 with 1:15 gone in the second quarter on Moore’s
19-yard pass to Brandon Marshall.

They stretched that to 17-0, the Patriots biggest deficit of the season, on
a 1-yard touchdown pass from Moore to Charles Clay. The 89-yard drive was helped
by two defensive pass interference penalties on third down.

But the Patriots remained calm in the locker room at intermission.

“There wasn’t a bunch of yelling,” Wilfork said. “We just came in and
said we’ve got to play better, we’ve got to make more plays.”

They did. The Dolphins didn’t.

“Our guys fought,” Bowles said, “but we didn’t finish.”

Notes: Welker set a franchise record for one season with 1,518 yards
receiving. He broke the mark of 1,493 set by Randy Moss in 2007. … Bush was
checked my medical personnel on the sideline late in the game “Something in my
leg just didn’t feel right,” he said. “I’m walking. If it was serious, I
wouldn’t be walking.” … Moore completed 17 of 33 passes for 294 yards, his
highest total as a Dolphin. He threw for more than that with the Carolina
Panthers once in 2009 and once in 2010. … The victory was the largest comeback
by the Patriots from a second-half deficit since Nov. 10, 2002 when they beat
the Chicago Bears 33-30 after trailing 27-6 in the third quarter.

-FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP)—The Miami Dolphins were halfway to an upset that
could have jumbled the AFC playoff picture.

Then came the second half.

The Dolphins gained just 21 yards in the third quarter and blew a 17-0 lead
in less than 15 minutes as the New England Patriots rallied for a 27-24 win on
Sunday.

“This one’s pretty tough,” said Reggie Bush, who ran for 113 yards on 22
carries.

Bush also surpassed 1,000 yards rushing in a season for the first time in
his career, yet was in no mood to celebrate.

After gaining 255 yards in the first half, Miami (5-10) had just 126 in the
second half and 80 of those came during a late touchdown drive as the Dolphins
desperately tried to recover after bumbling their way through the third and most
of the fourth quarters.

“We felt like we had the right game plan. We knew what we had to do, we
just didn’t execute it for four quarters,” Bush said. “We made some mistakes
on offense. That gets you beat playing against good teams like this.”

Both of Miami’s turnovers came in the second half and the pressure it had
gotten on New England’s Tom Brady early was gone.

Brady shook off a poor start and passed for 304 yards and a touchdown. He
also had a pair of 1-yard TDs rushing as the Patriots once again looked like
contenders for the top seed in the AFC with one scoring drive after another.

“We stalled there a little bit in the second half. You can’t do that
against a team like this,” said Matt Moore, who completed 17 of 33 passes for
294 yards and three touchdowns for Miami.

New England opened the second half with a drive for a field goal to cut
Miami’s lead to 17-3, then got the ball right back when Moore fumbled a snap and
Vince Wilfork pounced on it for the Patriots.

That led to a touchdown pass from Brady to Deion Branch to get New England
within 17-10 with 7:10 left in the third quarter and New England’s defense kept
up the pressure.

Moore was sacked for a loss of 10 on the first play after the kickoff, then
sacked again at the 10-yard line on third down. The Dolphins’ punt from their
end zone gave New England the ball at Miami’s 41 and the Patriots continued
their surge, scoring on Brady’s 1-yard run to tie it at 17l with 2:17 still left
in the third quarter.

“We put our defense on the short field too many times, which made it easy
for them,” Bush said.

The Dolphins didn’t score at all in the second half until Moore threw a
15-yard touchdown pass to Davone Bess, pulling Miami within a field goal with
1:48 left to play. The Dolphins still had all three timeouts, but that no longer
mattered when Brady converted on third-and-5 with a pass to Wes Welker, who had
12 catches for 138 yards.

New England (12-3) won its seventh straight game. After the Houston Texans
lost to the Indianapolis Colts on Thursday night, the Patriots needed a win or a
tie to lock up one of the top two spots in the AFC.

Miami lost for the third time in eight games after opening 0-7 and is 1-1
under Todd Bowles, who took over when Tony Sparano was fired.

“The guys fought, but we didn’t finish,” Bowles said. “We didn’t stop
them and we didn’t get points.”

The Dolphins seemed headed for a victory and got a break even before the
game started when Patriots left tackle Matt Light hurt his ankle in warm-ups and
didn’t play. Left guard Logan Mankins took his spot, but he left with a knee
injury suffered on New England’s second series.

Their absence showed as the Dolphins kept pressuring Brady. He completed
just 7 of 19 passes for 87 yards and was sacked three times in the half. But
once the third quarter began, Brady and the Patriots—both their offense and
defense—looked completely different starting with the very first play, a
22-yard completion to Rob Gronkowski.

Bush had another outstanding game for Miami with his fourth straight rushing
day of at least 100 yards. He finished with 113 on 22 carries one week after
gaining a career-high 203 yards.

The Dolphins had taken a 3-0 lead on Dan Carpenter’s 47-yard field goal 4:01
into the game and made it 10-0 with 1:15 gone in the second quarter on Moore’s
19-yard pass to Brandon Marshall.

They stretched that to 17-0, the Patriots’ biggest deficit of the season, on
a 1-yard touchdown pass from Moore to Charles Clay. The 89-yard drive was helped
by two defensive pass interference penalties on third down.

The Patriots punted on their first six possessions, then wasted a chance to
score when Stephen Gostkowski’s 51-yard field goal attempt on the next to last
play of the half went wide to the left.

FOXBOROUGH, MASS.—

A common word thrown around the Miami Dolphins’ locker room this season has been “winnable.” That’s what happens when a team piles up defeats in games they probably should have won. The latest example was Saturday’s 27-24 loss to the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium.

The Dolphins blew a 17-point, halftime lead, creating an all too familiar post-game mood. The Patriots, meanwhile, clinched a first-round bye in the playoffs.

“We didn’t finish,” linebacker Jason Taylor said. “They made a lot of plays in the second half. We made a lot of mistakes, missed some tackles … I think it was a very winnable game for us. When you play against a quality opponent, you can’t make some of the mistakes that we made.”

The Dolphins (5-10) have now lost five games by three points or less. This one was probably the toughest to stomach because at one point they were dominating perhaps the AFC’s best team. Miami was so in control it had the New England crowd of 68,756 booing beloved quarterback Tom Brady in the first half.

Then Brady began playing like Brady.

After enduring his worst half of the season, he completed 20 of 27 passes for 217 yards and a touchdown in the second half. Brady then connected with Wes Welker for a six-yard pass on 3rd-and-5 on the final drive to close out the Dolphins.

“That’s what everybody across the world knows,” cornerback Vontae Davis said. “Tom Brady, that’s what he’s capable of … That’s Tom Brady. He’s an elite quarterback in this league. You can stop him three quarters. You give him the fourth quarter to comeback, he’s gonna come back.”

Brady, who finished 27 of 46 for 304 yards, did most of the damage after New England switched to a no-huddle offense in the third quarter. It eliminated the pressure the Dolphins were able to get on Brady in the first half.

That helped the Dolphins force the Patriots (12-3) into three-and-outs on three consecutive possessions. The halftime adjustments were evident, with New England gaining 293 yards in the second half. Welker had 12 receptions for 138 yards.

“We knew halftime would be 0-0,” interim coach Todd Bowles said. “We knew these guys would come back out and fight. We got back out and we fought. We just didn’t play smart. They made the plays, we didn’t.”

After kicker Stephen Gostkowski got New England on the scoreboard with a 45-yard field goal in the third quarter, the unraveling of the Dolphins began.

Quarterback Matt Moore fumbled on the next possession, giving the Patriots the ball at the 38. Brady then hit Deion Branch on a one-yard touchdown pass to make it 17-10 with 7 minutes, 10 seconds left in the quarter.

On the next series, Brady once again took advantage of a short field. The 41-yard drive ended with Brady scoring on a one-yard touchdown run that tied the score.

The Dolphins were on the verge of answering when Moore made perhaps the most costly of his mistakes. Receiver Brian Hartline had beaten Patriots cornerback Devin McCourty on a fly pattern, but Moore’s pass was badly underthrown.

The play resulted in an interception by McCourty at the 2.The Patriots used the opportunity to grab their first lead on a 42-yard field goal by Gostkowski.

“It’s frustrating,” receiver Brandon Marshall said. “But the whole season is frustrating. We got a lot of heart in this locker room but unfortunately sometimes we’ve just got to make plays. We’ve got one more game left and we’re going to go out there and try to win it.”

Scoring plays

Patriots 27, Dolphins 24

Scoring play: Davone Bess catches a 15-yard pass from Matt Moore as the Dolphins claw back to within three; Dan Carpenter kicks the PAT