---

FOXBORO - Miami's Ted Ginn Jr. knifed his way through the New York Jets' kick coverage a week ago, leaving a trail of wreckage in his wake as he completed two touchdown returns of 100 yards of more.

This week against the Patriots? Nada.

Kicker Stephen Gostkowski boomed his kickoffs all day long in the Patriots' 27-17 win over Miami at Gillette Stadium - including one sequence in the second quarter where he hammered a kickoff out of the end zone only to have an offsides call force a re-kick from the 30-yard line.

So what did he do? He kicked it out of the end zone again.

"That was huge, just a couple of plays that we didn't have to go out there and cover," Gostkowski said of the back-to-back touchbacks. "We saw on the first kick that he was pretty dangerous, running around everybody. It's just a good day for special teams when you can contain a guy like that, especially with him coming off a week like he had last week." Ginn finished the day with 97 yards on four kick returns, the longest (37 yards) coming after Laurence Maroney's 1-yard TD run with 6:58 left in the first quarter.

Gostkowski kicked three balls out of the end zone (two that counted) and his other three kickoffs were returned for 27, 13 and 20 yards respectively - certainly nowhere near as damaging as what happened to the Jets on their home turf last week.

"Those guys did a pretty solid job," Patriots' coach Bill Belichick said of his kick coverage unit. "First, we got good kicking. The ball was hung up there pretty well on both punts and kickoffs. Our guys ran hard, tackled hard. I think we had some good hits down there."

"We've got guys who appreciate good special teams," said Gostkowski, who also kicked four field goals and was credited with a special-teams tackle. "The kickoffs, the punt coverages can't be very good if we don't kick good."

Quick kicks

As part of the pre-game ceremonies, the Patriots' organization asked fans to offer a moment of silence to honor the memory of U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Kyle Van De Giesen, who died in Afghanistan two weeks ago. Four Blackhawk helicopters did a flyover as military personnel sang the national anthem. Also honored was the memory of USMC Capt. Eric Jones of Mashpee, who was killed in another helicopter crash on the same day ...

The Patriots' inactives for the game were WR Julian Edelman, RB Fred Taylor, CB Jonathan Wilhite, RB Sammy Morris, LB Eric Alexander, OL Rich Ohrnberger, OT Matt Light and DE Jarvis Green. For the Dolphins, the inactives were QB Tyler Thigpen, RB Kory Sheets, LB Channing Crowder, OT Andrew Gardner, OT Lydon Murtha, WR Patrick Turner, LB Quentin Moses and DT Jason Ferguson Added to the Patriots' roster was cornerback Kyle Arrington, signed off the practice squad, while the Dolphins added linebacker J.D. Folsom off their practice squad

Tom Brady had 332 passing yards, registering his 27th career 300-yard passing game and passing Drew Bledsoe (26) for the most 300-yard games in New England history. The 300-yard game was his fourth of the 2009 season and was his third straight Randy Moss tied Buffalo's Terrell Owens for second place on the NFL's all-time list with 140 career touchdown catches Moss passed Henry Ellard and Cris Carter and moved into seventh place on the NFL's all-time receiving yards list today. Moss finished the afternoon with 13,913 Wes Welker had nine catches to finish the game with 55 receptions on the season, becoming the sixth player in Patriots' history with 50 or more catches in three straight seasons. Welker joins Ben Coates, Irving Fryar, Marv Cook, Terry Glenn and Troy Brown, and Randy Moss (49 catches) will join the club with his next reception

Gostkowski was a perfect four-for-four on field goals today, tying his career high Gostkowski raised his career total to 94 field goals, passing Tony Franklin (93 from 1984-87) and moving into fourth place on the Patriots' all-time field goals list. Adam Vinatieri is the Patriots' all-time leader with 263 (1996-2005), Gino Cappelletti ranks second with 176 (1960-70) and John Smith ranks third with 128 (1974-83) Brady has now won 20 straight starts at home (including the playoffs), a streak that began following a 17-14 loss to the New York Jets on Nov. 12, 2006. Brady is 20-0 as a starter since the Patriots installed FieldTurf at Gillette Stadium The Patriots improved to 8-2 after the bye week since Belichick became head coach in 2000.