There was Ronnie Brown, coming off an ACL injury, rushing for 4 touchdowns and throwing a touchdown pass to tight end Anthony Fasano. There was Ricky Williams, providing a change of pace and fulfilling the vision many had of this two-headed rushing attack. The Dolphins ran the ball 36 times for 216 yards (6.0 yards per carry).

There was Chad Pennington, having a nearly flawless game, completing 18 of 21 passes (85.7%) for 226 yards (10.76 yards per attempt). He hit the short and intermediate routes all day long, He hit Ted Ginn, Greg Camarillo, Anthony Fasano and the rest of the receivers time and again, not only to keep drives alive, but to gain chunks of yardage at a time. Pennington completed a 24 yard pass to Fasano, a 33 yard pass to Camarillo, and 18 yard pass to Ginn, a 21 yard pass to Martin and a 15 yard pass to Ernest Wilford.

 There was the Dolphins offense rumbling over the Patriots defense for 461 net yards. The offensive line opened holes, they protected their quarterback. But most surprising and impressive, they ran the same trick play over and over and it worked virtually everytime. A college play that involves Ronnie Brown taking a direct snap and either keeping it himself, handing it off to Ricky or passing it down the field. This was surreal. It is usually the New England Patriots that are catching teams off balance with wrinkles. But today they were the ones caught off balance. They expected an ineffective running game and passing game. What they got was a fistful of trickeration and an embarrasing loss at home to a team most considered a laughingstock going into the season. But for the next two weeks, they get to laugh.

 There was Joey Porter talking trash and backing it up. Porter had 3 sacks and a forced fumble. After a disappointing season last year, Porter has 4 sacks through three games.

There was the Dolphins run defense, stopping the Patriots running game. New England rushed for 79 yards and had 216 yards of total offense. Randy Moss, who many were expecting to torch the Dolphins defense all day long, was invisible. Matt Cassel proved Joey Porter right by showing he is not Tom Brady.

Enjoy the win. Be glad we didn't have to wait 14 games for it. This season, on this game alone, now has a different feel to it. Last year, this team got their lone win on a prayer. The opposing team gave us the game due to poor coaching and playcalling and the Dolphins got lucky. This year, they won their first game in dominant fashion. Is this an emerging team? Will we see this again this season?

Only time will tell, but for now, it is good to beat a division rival, a top team, on their own turf and leaving no question of who the better team was on the field.

GO DOLPHINS!

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Last Sunday our Dolphins to a big step back against Arizona, as once again Miami had a very difficult time getting an type of running game going and as a whole the offense was stuck in nuetral the whole game.  The same disturbing trend of the WR being a non factor was evident again and teams are focusing on the TE and they were a non factor last week as well.  To make matters worse, losing Donald Thomas stunts the growth of the OL and now you are trying to find a suitable replacement for Thomas.

Defensively, Miami did a good job agains the run as Arizona had less than 80 yards rushing for the game.  The bad part of this equation, and it was very bad is that the secondary got absolutely torched by the tandem of Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald, as the tandem combined for over 300 yards and 3 touchdowns passes.  The pass rush also struggled to generate pass rush in this game as well and that has to improve.

Next up is New England, a team that is a shell of the team it was last year with NFL MVP Tom Brady out for the year, but still a very good and proud football team.  Judging from the game plan against the Jets, the Patriots are going to be a team that counts on the run game with conservative passing from Matt Cassel to keep the chains moving and rely on there veteran defense to win games and that proved successful last week agains the Jets.  Against Miami, you can expect the Patriots to deviate from that game plan somewhat and test a secondary that has shown a tendacy to give up the big play with one Randy Moss, as he presents the same problems for the Miami secondary that Boldin and Fitzgerald presented last week.  A big WR with great speed that has a big advantage on any type of jump ball situation.

What will we see from Miami this Sunday, that remains to be seen.  This is a team without and identity, an unknown commodity for the most part with a new staff that are learning on the job and a young team that is still learning how to play the game.  I hope we see a team that has learned a little more about themselves and show the signs of improvment that we all want to see.  Will this add up to a win today against the Patriots, I don't think it will, but I certainly want to see a team that can show me something that will give me reason for hope in the future.