Image courtesy of Nancy Lane/Boston Herald

In Week 2, the Patriots were a Cole Strange wild fumble recovery/first down away from possibly upsetting the Dolphins at home on a Sunday night.

Now at 2-5 after a stunning win over the Bills, New England will travel to Miami this week to take on a Dolphins team that just got rolled by Philadelphia last Sunday.

“Alright, I think everyone is pretty familiar with the Dolphins, so I’ll save you the recap on them. A pretty explosive team,” Bill Belichick said at the start of his usual Wednesday press conference. Normally, the first five minutes or so are reserved for a comprehensive breakdown on that week’s opponent, which obviously, wasn’t needed this week.

While any trip to Miami in the last 30+ years always seems like an adventure for the Patriots, this week’s game is an interesting one. Is Miami as good as everyone thinks? Are the Patriots on their way to a turnaround after that Bills upset? While luck usually doesn’t favor New England when they make the trip down, thee’s an odd feeling surrounding this game given the uncertainty when it comes to exactly what both teams are.

Miami’s talent is undeniable, but they’ve also been inconsistent at times and only scored 24 here at Gillette Stadium. The Patriots have obviously been equally if not more inconsistent, but the fashion they beat Buffalo in suggests that maybe, just maybe, things are starting to click.

Either way, divisional opponents always make for tough games, particularly when the meetings are so close together.

“I think everybody has evolved in the last few weeks. Every team has. So, they have. It’s just the normal evaluation. Some injuries and transitions in their schemes, pretty similar,” Bill Belichick said on Wednesday when asked how different or similar the Dolphins are compared to the first matchup.

Usually, this time of year is the time where Belichick says he starst to find out what type of team he has. So, he was asked Tuesday what he’s learned about the 2023 squad through the first seven weeks of the season, acknowledging there’s still some learning to do before fully having that answer figured out.

” I think we’re still working through it,” he said. “There’s been quite a few changes since the start of the year. So, this isn’t the same team that we had at the start of the year, six weeks later. It’s a little bit different.”

How different? We’ll find out Sunday. But, if the same defense shows up that showed up in Week 2, while the offense that showed up against Buffalo decides to get on the flight down to Miami, we may be talking about a 3-5 team and a wildly different outlook on Monday.