I rarely ever gripe about refs and calls going one way or the other because, in the grand scheme of things, bad calls that both help the Dolphins and hurt the Dolphins probably even out over the course of a season.  For that reason, I lay off the referees - for the most part.

But then you have calls that change games.  And that's exactly what I want to spend a moment highlighting.  Last week against the Saints, the Dolphins were on the short end of a couple of "questionable" calls by the refs.  But one of the biggest plays of the game went against the Dolphins - and had a huge impact on the rest of the game.

Yes - I'm talking about Darren Sharper's "pick six" early in the third quarter.  And yes, there's a reason I'm using quotation marks.  As it turns out, it's pretty clear that the play should not have resulted in a touchdown for New Orleans.

Let's set the scene.

The Dolphins come out from halftime leading 24-10.  But on the third play from scrimmage in the second half, Chad Henne threw a pass that should have been caught by Ted Ginn - but we won't go there.  Instead, it was bobbled by Ginn and intercepted by Darren Sharper, who returned it 42 yards for a touchdown.  Suddenly, it was only a seven point lead.

But it shouldn't have been.  Thanks to Sports Illustrated's terrific photographers (Simon Bruty, in particular, got this shot), we have visual evidence that Sharper did fumble the ball before crossing the goal line.  The ball then went out of bounds in the endzone, which should have resulted in a touchback in favor of the Dolphins and a 1st down at the 20 yard line.

The referees even reviewed the play following a challenge from Tony Sparano - but did not overrule the call on the field.

The visual evidence is below.

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Last week against the Saints, the Dolphins were not as effective inside the red zone as they had been in their two previous games.  While nobody seems to be talking about it, I think that Miami's inability to score a touchdown on every red zone possession was a critical factor in their loss to the Saints.

We all knew that the Dolphins would need to score lots of points if they wanted to win that game.  But on their six red zone possessions, the Dolphins only scored three touchdowns.  That's not how you beat a team like New Orleans.

Throwing out Miami's final red zone possession, which was the final drive of the game and ended as the clock expired, the Dolphins had to settle for two field goals on possessions in which they had first downs inside the 20, essentially leaving eight points on the field.  And I know we could play the "what if" game all day long, but those eight points the Dolphins left on the field might have been the difference between a win and a loss - even with everything else that went wrong during the course of that game.

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More photos » by Bill Feig - AP

Time for Miami's rookie corners to step up and show what they got.

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Sure it's still hard to swallow what we all witnessed on Sunday.  But like Jason Taylor said, "It's Jets week!"  Nothing would cure all of us Dolphin fans more than a win over the Jets on Sunday in the Meadowlands.  It's likely, barring some kind of playoff rematch, that this will be the final time the Dolphins play at the current Giants Stadium - with the new Meadowlands Stadium expected to open in 2010.  We all have some good memories and some bad memories from games played in that building.  Let's just hope we close it up with a positive one.

To do that, these three matchups will be critical.

Braylon Edwards/Jerricho Cotchery vs Sean Smith/Vontae Davis
Only two other NFL teams have even started one rookie cornerback this season.  On Sunday, the Dolphins will start two rookie corners following Will Allen's season-ending ACL tear.  And they will be asked to defend two veteran receivers who possess a lot of talent.

In their first meeting, Braylon Edwards - despite being a Jet for less than a week - had 5 catches for 64 yards and a touchdown.  He also drew a huge pass interference call on Will Allen that gave the Jets a 1st & goal from the 1 yard line.  But since then, Edwards only has 4 receptions for 54 yards.  However, he's been targeted 11 times over the past two weeks - which results in 25% of Mark Sanchez's total pass attempts.  Braylon is big and strong and is a matchup nightmare for many teams.

Of course, for the Dolphins, he's not exactly a matchup nightmare thanks to the size of rookie corner Sean Smith - who has been very good as a starter since day one.  If I'm the Dolphins this week, I'm preparing Smith to shadow Braylon everywhere he goes.  I know the coaches liked to stick with keeping Allen on one side and Smith on the other.  But the Dolphins don't have that luxury anymore.  Besides, Smith is athletic enough to handle both the left and right boundaries.  It's time to throw the rookie into the fire and see how he responds.

Meanwhile, Vontae Davis will replace Allen in the starting lineup and make his first career start on Sunday.  He's been up and down, but has progressed well.  He'll be asked to cover either Jerricho Cotchery (if he plays) or David Clowney - who did post a 4-72 receiving line against the Dolphins in their first meeting.  Davis is an aggressive corner and I hope to see him up on the line of scrimmage bumping whoever he is asked to cover.

Call me crazy, but in the long run, it might the best thing for the Dolphins to have to start both rookies from here on out.  They're going to have their ups and downs for sure.  But they're also going to learn a lot about the game and about themselves.  This matchup should be a lot off fun to watch on Sunday.

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More photos » by Jeffrey M. Boan - AP

The Dolphins have reportedly lost patience with "Teddy Bobbles."

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One of the hot topics following the Dolphins' collapse on Sunday against the Saints has been centered on receiver Ted Ginn.  We all know that he's been a huge disappointment this season and it has all finally come to a head after another poor display by Ginn on Sunday - which featured a couple more dropped balls, one of which was plucked out of the air by a defender and returned for a touchdown.

Since then, I've noticed a new website, TedGinnSucks.com, and a petition by Dolphin fans to have Ginn cut from the team - which, as of this posting currently has close to 100 signees already.

But the "real news" comes courtesy of Chris Mortensen, who said on ESPN during their pre-game show on Monday night that Ginn will begin to see less action on gamedays:

Per ESPN's Chris Mortensen (who likely still has a pipeline to his former ESPN colleague, Bill Parcells), Ginn will see reduced playing time going forward.

Mort also said that, if the trade deadline were tomorrow instead of last Tuesday, the Dolphins would be dialing up the Ravens and offering Ginn to the team whose offensive coordinator, Cam Cameron, drafted Ginn in 2007 with the ninth overall pick.

First off, it's probably true that Mortensen is more "dialed into" the Dolphins front office than most other reporters because of his relationship with Bill Parcells.  And I'm not surprised at all that Ginn will start to see less playing time.  That's what he deserves.  But I get the feeling that the idea Miami would be "dialing up the Ravens and offering Ginn" is pure speculation by Mortensen.  I doubt this front office would ever let that information out to anyone, let alone a reporter who will just turn around and announce it to the world.  What would the Dolphins even get by trading Ginn?  Does he really have any value at all at this point?

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More photos » by Jeffrey M. Boan - AP

I think this photo says it all. Darren Sharper would catch this ball off of Ted Ginn's hands and return it for a touchdown.

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With less than two minutes to go in the first half, it seemed like the Miami Dolphins were on their way to one of their best wins in years, holding a 24-3 lead over the undefeated New Orleans Saints.  Unfortunately, football games require a full 60 minutes.  The Dolphins put together an outstanding 28 minutes - followed by about 32 minutes of complete disaster - which is what makes this game so hard to swallow.

Defensive breakdowns in second half
Even after that disappointing end to the first half - which we'll get to in a little - the Dolphins still held a 14 point lead at halftime.  But Miami's defense collapsed in the second half, allowing the Saints to just march up and down the field on seemingly every possession.

There are a number of places you can lay some blame for this loss.  But the defense certainly has to get a lot of blame.  They played so well in the first half only to allow 23 points and 317 yards on just 38 plays.  Worse yet, the Dolphins surrendered 285 yards of offense and 9.83 yards per play over the final 20 minutes of the game.  So while a lot of you will point the finger at others - who do deserve some blame as well - don't let an outstanding defensive first half taint your view of how this defense performed.  The final quarter and a half was just disgusting.

What exactly was the problem?  Some of it was probably execution and players not being where they were supposed to.  That could explain why Saint receivers were running wide open down the field for much of the second half.  Missed tackles were also a problem - such as Gibril Wilson's whiff on Reggie Bush on a key 3rd down.  There was a lack of pressure on Drew Brees in the fourth quarter as well, which is not good.  We saw in the first half how much consistent pressure on Brees makes him uncomfortable.

But the biggest issue might be what we don't know and likely will never know: did the Dolphins coaching staff go into halftime anticipating the adjustment New Orleans would make in the second half?  During our live game thread, somebody said at halftime how it would be important to see how the Dolphins react to the halftime adjustments the Saints make on offense.  That's hitting the nail right on the head.  We won't ever know for sure - especially without being able to see the film.  But there were clearly issues in the second half.  We didn't see nearly the amount of receivers running wide open - especially over the middle - in the first half as we saw in the second.

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More photos » by Jeffrey M. Boan - AP

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It would have been easier to lose this game in a blowout loss.  But blowing a 24-3 lead at home is tough to swallow.

There are a lot of reasons we can come up with for the loss.  We'll get into those later tonight/tomorrow.

Keep this thread clean.  Recap post to follow later.  And please note, instead of posting a fanpost that is short and is nothing more than venting, post them as comments here.  I don't need a million fanposts about the same things.

Unreal.  I didn't realize it was so easy to blow a 24-3 lead.

Use this thread now for all game discussion.

GO DOLPHINS!!!

The Dolphins did what they had to do early - getting out in front and putting pressure on the Saints.  But they let the Saints back into it right before halftime.

Halftime in Miami, Dolphins lead 24-10.

Use this thread now for all game discussion.

GO DOLPHINS!!!

The Dolphins and Saints kick off at 4:15 ET today.  Our official game thread will be posted about a half hour prior to kick off.

So you can use this thread to discuss anything you'd like to talk about during today's early games.

Dolphins inactives are RB Kory Sheets, QB Tyler Thigpen, OT Andrew Gardner, DE Lionel Dotson, WR Pat Turner, TE John Nalbone, LB Quentin Moses, and OT Lydon Murtha.

Look for Ted Ginn to be the kickoff return man with Sheets inactive.

Following Miami's impressive win over the Jets two weeks ago, it seems like more and more people are at least giving the Dolphins more respect.  But does that translate into more "experts" picking the Dolphins to upset the Saints?  Below are some picks:

Alright - clearly, the Dolphins, despite their new found respect from the mainstream media, are still not liked by many to pull off the upset.  But you know what?  Nobody picked the 1-6 Dolphins to beat the 7-0 Bears in Chicago a few years back.  How did that turn out?

With that said, I'm still not "eating the cheese."  The Dolphins are better than their 2-3 record implies.  But they aren't good enough to keep up with the Saints.  If things don't come together in the secondary quickly, the Dolphins won't win this game.

We saw that even owning the ball for 3/4ths of the game isn't good enough if your defense just gives up touchdown after touchdown.  But if the Dolphins can just keep this game close into the fourth quarter, they could steal this game away from New Orleans.  But they must play mistake free.  A little help from mother nature wouldn't hurt, either.  Wind and rain, anyone?

My Week 7 Locks
Falcons +3.5 over Cowboys - This Atlanta team is for real, folks.  They can beat you multiple ways and they will indeed walk into Big D and win this game out-right.  But getting 3.5 points makes this pick even safer.
Colts -12.5 over Rams - The Colts will dominate against one of the league's two worst teams.  And they even welcome back Bob Sanders to help on defense.  This one could get ugly.
Packers -6.5 over Browns - Assuming the Packers can keep Aaron Rodgers upright (which has been an issue at times this year), Green Bay should waltz into Cleveland and win by double digits against a team that has serious issues scoring any points at all.
Chargers - 4.5 over Chiefs - The Chargers, like the Dolphins, aren't your typical 2-3 team.  They'll find a way to win this game by a touchdown or so.

Last Week: 2-2
Season: 7-9