The focus in Sunday’s Miami Dolphins-New England Patriots game was squarely on the starting quarterbacks -- Tua Tagovailoa for the Dolphins and Mac Jones for the Patriots in the first NFL matchup of former Alabama signal-callers since Nov. 21, 1983.
But another Crimson Tide alumni may have been the central figure in the season-opening game.
New England running back Damien Harris ran for 100 yards on 23 carries on Sunday. But on a first-and-10 snap at the Miami 11-yard line, Harris lost a fumble with 3:31 remaining in the game.
The Dolphins got two first downs and were able to run out the clock on a 17-16 victory in an AFC East rivalry game at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
“That’s the complementary football that we’ve talked about,” Miami coach Brian Flores said. “Offense goes in there, gets a first down against a good defense. We’re able to run it out and end the game with the ball.”
After starting nine games in his rookie season, Tagovailoa completed 16-of-27 passes for 202 yards with one touchdown and one interception and ran four times for 1 yard and one touchdown in his first Game 1 start.
Jones completed 29-of-39 passes for 281 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions as he became the first Alabama player to start at quarterback in his first NFL game.
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“I think we can get better,” Jones said. “That’s just how we have to look at it. It definitely wasn’t good enough, starting with me, so we just got to watch the film. We lost, so it’s not good enough. …
“(Patriots offensive coordinator) Josh (McDaniels) told me – just enjoy the day. You’ll never play a rookie-year opening game again. But that’s not how I wanted it to go.”
Jones became the eighth player in the NFL’s Super Bowl Era with at least 281 passing yards and one TD pass while starting his team’s season-opening game in his rookie season, and Jones’ completion rate of 74.4 percent was the best of any of those players.
Since 1950, none of the 53 previous rookie quarterbacks who threw at least 30 passes while starting in their first NFL game had a completion percentage as good as Jones’.
“I was happy for him,” Tagovailoa said of Jones. “It being his first real game with a crowd like this, I thought he made some really good throws. Their execution on third down, I thought, was really good. And Mac looks like he fits perfectly into their offense and their system.”
Tagovailoa and Jones were Crimson Tide teammates in the 2017, 2018 and 2019 seasons.
Tagovailoa ran 3 yards for a touchdown to finish Miami’s first possession of the season – a 10-play, 80-yard drive. He got the Dolphins into position for a 48-yard field goal on the final snap of the first half with a 36-yard completion to rookie wide receiver Jaylen Waddle the key play on the series. And Tagovailoa threw a 3-yard touchdown pass to Waddle, the first-round draft pick from Alabama’s first TD in the NFL, to complete a nine-yard, 75-yard march for a 17-10 lead on the first series of the second half.
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“I thought he threw the ball well,” Flores said of Tagovailoa. “I thought he made some big throws. That was a good run to get us started. … I thought he made a lot of good plays, a lot of big throws that we needed. I know that third down to start the second half was a big throw. We needed it.”
New England’s final possession of the first half had ended with Jones’ first NFL touchdown pass – a 7-yard toss to wide receiver Nelson Agholor.
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Jones’ teammates tried to give him the football after the pass, but he didn’t take it.
“That doesn’t really matter,” Jones said. “That was one touchdown. We got to score more. It’s not like the game was over right there. We got to do better in the red zone and get more touchdowns, and we will.”
The Patriots’ first two possessions of the second half produced a pair of 14-play drives. But each ended in a field goal, which left New England trailing 17-16 with 10:36 left play.
The Patriots seemed to have gotten a game-winning break when cornerback Jonathan Jones, a former Auburn standout, intercepted a Tagovailoa pass. The Miami QB threw while being knocked back and the football touched a couple of receivers’ hands before Jones pulled it down. Jones’ interception put New England at the 50-yard line with 8:07 to play. But that possession ended with Harris’ fumble.
“Damien’s obviously very disappointed,” Jones said, “but that doesn’t go on Damien. There’s a lot of things I could have done better to not even be in that situation – take some bigger chunk plays. He played his heart out. It is what it is. He’s going to be better from it.”
On Sept. 19, the Patriots visit the New York Jets and the Dolphins host the Buffalo Bills.
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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.
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