Fifteen years later, it remains one of the most pivotal turning points that defined the early years of the Brady-Belichick era in New England, an overtime win in a place that historically to that point the Patriots had some pretty hard luck.
And as New England's struggles in Miami in more recent years come to light this week with the Patriots get ready to take on the Dolphins down in South Florida, quarterback Tom Brady was asked Friday afternoon to reminisce about his first-ever win at Hard Rock Stadium, that legendary 2003 overtime win sealed by an 82-yard touchdown pass to Troy Brown, one that sent coach Bill Belichick into a rare emotional frenzy.
https://twitter.com/ftbeard_17/status/1071130307628167168
"That was pretty sweet. It was a great game, great win," Brady said. "Troy was not the intended receiver on the play – it was kind of a toss play. I was supposed to throw it to the backside slant, but I remember the coverage kind of rotated that way and Troy was running a slant on the other side and just kept running and I saw him and just chucked it up there, he caught it and we celebrated."
Celebrate how, might you ask?
"It was just a great celebration," he continued. "I remember the bus ride leaving was pretty cool. We were flipping people off and it was out of control. We hadn’t won there in so long, you thought we won five Super Bowls in a row. It was pretty fun."
That win, the Patriots' third in a row after starting the season 2-2, improved them to 5-2 and galvanized the team on the way to a 15-game win streak and second Super Bowl title in three seasons.
New England Patriots
To this day, it remains among the most emotionally-charged exclamations we've seen out of The Hooded One.
"Yeah, we all were," Brady said, when asked if he'd ever seen Belichick as happy as he was that day. "That was a pretty special day. There was a long history of us playing a lot of bad football games down there and that kind of broke that a little bit, not that it’s been stellar, but at least that one got us out of the basement."
Click here to download the new MyTeams App by NBC Sports! Receive comprehensive coverage of your teams and stream the Celtics easily on your device.