Tom Brady: 'It can't get any worse' after Dolphins loss, third down woes

Dec. 12 (UPI) -- It's a rare moment when Tom Brady is talking about his failure to orchestrate a fourth-quarter comeback.

But that's exactly what he did Monday after the New England Patriots lost 27-20 to the Miami Dolphins in an AFC East matchup at Hard Rock Stadium. Brady completed 24-of-43 passes for 233 yards, one score and two interceptions.

Brady, 40, entered the game with just four interceptions on the season. The Dolphins have picked off the future Hall of Famer three times in the last three weeks.

He posted a 59.5 quarterback rating -- his worst since the 2013 season. The Patriots were also 0-for-11 on third down conversions.

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady (12) completed 24-of-43 passes for 233 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions Monday against the Miami Dolphins at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. Photo by Matthew Healey/UPI

"Yeah, it was pretty bad," Brady said. "We can't get any worse than that. We couldn't stay on the field and just didn't make enough plays. It's just a bad night. We've had a lot of good nights this year and this was a bad night."

Dolphins quarterback Jay Cutler kept Brady and his weapons off of the field in the first quarter, dominating the clock and controlling the ball for 13:12, compared to the Patriots' 1:48.

"Yeah, and then when we did [have the ball], we went 3 and out, so I don't think that was great," Brady said. "Obviously if they are going to take the ball and possess it, we gotta do something when we get it. We just didn't do a great job of that."

Brady struggled to find wide receivers in the first half, deferring to his running backs.

"I think there were less screen passes in there and stuff like that," Brady said. "We just have to take a look. Ideally you'd like to spread it around to everybody. We just got behind and not really the way we wanted to play the game. It was just a bad loss."

Patriots coach Bill Belichick used exceptionally few words to describe the team's struggles of playing in South Florida as of late. New England is 1-4 in their last four contests in Miami.

"Yeah just not playing well," Brady said. "I don't think there's any magic potion or anything to take to come down and win. We just didn't play good, got behind, tried to battle back and just couldn't do it. It's just a bad night. I wish we played better but we didn't and we have to move on and try to play better next week."

On the other hand, Cutler had one of his best games of the season Monday. He completed 65.8 percent of his throws for 263 yards, three scores and zero interceptions. It was only his third game this season without an interception.

Cutler posted a 112.1 quarterback rating.

But it isn't as rare as you might think for a quarterback to post a better quarterback rating in a head-to-head matchup against Brady. In his last 20 regular season starts -- dating back to last season -- Brady has been outshined by Josh McCown, Alex Smith, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Trevor Siemian, Cam Newton and now Cutler, in that department.

"He [Cutler] did a good job," Dolphins coach Adam Gase said after the game.

"He stayed focused the entire game. He stayed wired in and kept going through the drives. When we went back out there, we had good focus. We just kept talking about resetting one series at a time. Every series we just wanted to make sure to get a first down and do everything we can to get in that red zone, and when we get in the red zone we wanted to score touchdowns."

Gase said the Dolphins strived to create pressure around Brady all night.

"It's just down in, down out," Gase said. "Any time they threw it, [we would] just try to get around him, create some pressure. We they get to third down, when our guys know you're going to throw it, you just get close to him and try to get a hand on it whether or not they're actually knocking him down or sacking him. It was that presence constantly, just kind of getting around him."

Brady still leads the league with 3,865 passing yards. He has 27 touchdowns against six interceptions. His 105.2 quarterback rating is tops in the NFL.

"It was a good job tonight by the Dolphins, coach Gase, staff, their team," Patriots coach Bill Belichick said.

"They did a good job tonight. They obviously did a better job than we did. We just weren't really good enough in any area, consistent enough in any area to win the game. So, all need to do a better job and [we] weren't able to do that. It just wasn't good enough tonight across the board."