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If the Dolphins had been able to march into Foxborough Sunday and find a way to beat the vaunted New England Patriots Sunday, the AFC East would have been quite the muddled division. Even the Buffalo Bills would have been within striking distance, while the Jets and Dolphins would have trailed the Pats by a single game with eight to play.

After a Ronnie Brown touchdown pass -- which was surely a flashback to last year's Wildcat-fest in New England -- the Patriots found themselves facing a 17-16 deficit with 4:51 left in the third quarter, and the Dolphins appeared on the verge of the critical road upset.

But Tom Brady, Randy Moss and company weren't having that.

Coincidence or not, after Tom Brady missed almost all of the 2008 season after a low hit tore the Patriots star's left MCL and ACL, the NFL's Competition Committee made clear that it would enforce more strictly a rule preventing defenders from tackling quarterbacks at or below the knee. It was affectionately dubbed "The Brady Rule" by folks outside the league office.

And the Patriots have benefitted from the increased focus on QB protection, with their opponents picking up five roughing the passer penalties in seven games. One, in particular, raised some eyebrows -- in New England's Week 4 win over Baltimore, Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs gently brushed Brady's knee, and Brady gestured back at referee Ron Winter, and a flag came flying.

Winter might have thrown the flag regardless of Brady's reaction -- it is in the rule book, after all, though the rule states that forcible contact must me made -- but, nonetheless, the anti-Brady folk out there used it as evidence that Brady gets whatever he wants from officials.

LONDON -- Mike Alstott's 1-yard touchdown run sparked Tampa Bay to an 84-0 win over New England Saturday.

No joke. Alstott really did score one of the red team's 14 touchdowns. The guys wearing blue jerseys had zero.

"Nil!" Paul Stewart said.

He broke out a bottle of champagne and passed it around. If ever a team deserved to savor a little success, it's the Bucs' UK fan club -- it beat the Patriots' fan club on Saturday in a flag football game. The other Bucs team was presumably watching film or sacrificing goats or whatever you do when you face that other New England team.

That'll happen Sunday at Wembley. Saturday at Richmond Park in Southwest London was the preamble. The oldest NFL fan club in Britain (the Bucs) met the fan club of England's most popular team (the Patriots).

Less than two days after unleashing an aerial assault on the Titans, the Patriots have decided that Joey Galloway is an unnecessary part of their roster and, according to Adam Schefter, both on my teevee and Twitter, released him.

Galloway for the season has a stunningly weak six catches for 67 yards and hasn't played in a Pats game since Week 3. Additionally, when Galloway was on the field, there was an obvious disconnect between he and Tom Brady, who didn't seem to care for the receivers inability to stretch the field for Wes Welker and Randy Moss (which is what, theoretically, he was brought in to do).

Jeff Fisher's frozen mustache passed for more yards than the Tennessee Titans did on Sunday. So did you. So did I. In the end, the Titans passed for -7 yards, lost 59-0, and left anyone with a pulse in Nashville wondering why Fisher is making $5 million a year. Eventually, Sunday made history, as the Patriots delivered the worst beating in an NFL game since 1976. And for those of us who watched every snap, the game wasn't even as close as the final score. Nope, 59-0 was as generous as Bill Belichick and the Patriots could have been in defeating the Titans.

But merely reading about this game does the contest a disservice. To truly experience the defeat you had to be sitting on your couch, in a Titans t-shirt, jaw agape, amazed at what you were seeing. I've been alive for 30 football seasons now and never been so astounded at my team's incompetence. In fact, in my entire life as a sports fan, I've never seen a beating this bad in any sport. Here we go with 16 observations from the game.

It started out innocently enough: the winless Titans were holding the Patriots relatively in-check through the first quarter during a heavy nor'easter. It replicated perfectly the attitude that Jeff Fisher discussed about his 0-fer team (i.e. they still managed to have some semblance of heart).

Then all of a sudden, things took a turn for the worse -- or better if you're a Pats fan -- as Tom Brady caught fire and began dismantling the Titans with five (!!!!) touchdown passes ... in the second quarter! (Update: Brady added a sixth touchdown before being pulled; seven is the record for most in one game.)

It's hard to feel too bad for Tom Brady and the Patriots. Much has been made of Brady's struggle to find a groove after returning from last year's season-ending knee surgery -- but even at less than top form, Brady's fourth in the league in yards passing, and the Patriots are tied for first in the AFC East.

New England's golden boy has looked very un-Brady-like at times, though, and his struggles have transferred over to Randy Moss, who -- despite 30 catches -- has found the end zone just once.

Both Brady and Moss are in need of a confidence-boosting breakthrough performance. They could get just that against Tennessee's disheveled secondary on Sunday.

DENVER -- After both teams had rerouted receivers enough, inserted personnel groupings aplenty, forced an underneath, long-haul offensive game and pushed the matchups gimmicks to the edge, only one team had one extra play in it. One extra kick.

And that was the Broncos.

It was a 20-17 overtime victory for Denver here against the mighty New England Patriots that legitimized the Broncos' now 5-0 season. After all, the Patriots were favored to dump the Broncos in their own yard at Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium.

It's not very often you'll find a 4-0 team as a home underdog against a non-undefeated team, but that's exactly the scenario that has played out. New England's only road game this season was in New York, where the Jet defense completely stifled the New England offense as the team handed the Patriots their only loss of the season. No defense has played better than that of the Denver Broncos, and the team has given up just 26 points combined over the first four games of the season. Sure, a couple of those games were against Brady Quinn and JaMarcus Russell-led teams, but you can only beat the teams you play, and Denver has done a great job of that this year.

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According to Mike Reiss of ESPNBoston, New England Patriots No. 1 running back Fred Taylor is going to undergo surgery to repair his injured right ankle. The 33-year-old running back hurt his ankle on his seventh and final carry against the Ravens this past Sunday. No real timetable has been set for Taylor's return following this procedure, except that Reiss reports that it won't cost him the season unless there are complications.

Taylor, an offseason free agent acquisition, leads the Pats' backfield committee in carries (45), yards (201), yards per carry (4.5) and touchdowns (2). Expect Laurence Maroney, Sammy Morris and Kevin Faulk to all receive an increased workload with Taylor sidelined.