(Sports Network) - Given the way the New York Jets defense had played over the first four weeks of the 2009 season, you might have expected the Dolphins to have to change their offensive gameplan a tad.

It stood to reason that a much-improved Jets "D" would be able to take away what Miami did best - running the football in short, methodical increments - and force inexperienced Dolphins quarterback Chad Henne to drop back for most of the night.

However, in this battle of strength vs. strength, it was the Dolphins' strength that won out.

In a 31-27 win that tightened what is shaping up to be an intriguing AFC East race, Tony Sparano's club churned up 151 yards on 36 ground touches (4.2 yards per carry), while putting the football in the hands of their running backs on a total of 44 offensive plays.

Fittingly, the final of those snaps came when Ronnie Brown busted into the end zone from two yards out, out of the team's vaunted "Wildcat" formation, with just six seconds remaining.

"We had six seconds up on the clock, and we were in the huddle and we were like, 'No settling for field goals, we need to score a touchdown,'" said Brown. "We have to finish the game. That was something we had struggled with in the first few games. We said we're going to finish tonight. Whatever we need to do to get the ball in the end zone."

Brown carried 21 times for 74 yards and two touchdowns in the game, completed 1-of-2 pass attempts for 21 yards as the team's Wildcat quarterback, and hauled in another three passes for 14 yards out of the backfield.

Running mate Ricky Williams also had a high-impact night, carrying 11 times for 68 yards and adding a team-high 70 yards on three catches out of the backfield.

"I thought...both Ricky and Ronnie had a great start in the ball game," said Sparano. "I thought Ricky had a great burst and really ran the ball physical. I think Ronnie was very physical at the end of runs."

Meanwhile, Henne (20-of-26, 241 yards, 2 TD) turned in a complementary performance in just his second NFL start, helping lead Miami (2-3) to a win that pulls the team within one game of AFC East co-leaders the Jets (3-2) and Patriots (3-2), and only a couple of weeks after the Dolphins were being left for dead at 0-3.

"There's a lot of panic at 0-2, 0-3, a lot of panic around, but the team stayed pretty level-headed," said Sparano. "I think one of the things that we knew is that some of the things...were self-inflicted. The last couple ball games we haven't turned the ball over, we've forced a couple turnovers. We haven't had our quarterback sacked, I think those things are positives."

Now, Miami will get to enjoy a bye week prior to a critical three-game stretch that includes contests against the unbeaten Saints (10/25), the Jets again on the road (11/1), and a trip to New England (11/8).

"I think it's a huge deal for us right now going into the bye week," said Sparano of the win. "I think a lot of things happened [Sunday] in our division. It just goes to show you that to panic is not the answer. There's an awful lot of football left right now in this season."

BILLS: After their brutal 6-3 home loss to a previously winless Cleveland Browns team on Sunday, it's safe to say that it is a bad week to be Dick Jauron.

Buffalo owner Ralph Wilson probably could have made things a bit easier on Jauron by firing him on Monday morning, a move being demanded by a frustrated and angry Bills fan base, but no such luck. At least for now, there will be no helicopter air-lifting Jauron out of the natural disaster that is the Bills' 2009 season.

"[Sunday] was so bad that it's hard to make a decision right now," Wilson said at a luncheon held in Buffalo on Monday. "I'm not going to make any decisions during the middle of the season...at least right now."

Wilson was non-committal when asked if Jauron will last the season, however.

"I don't know," said the 90-year-old owner. "I'll tell you what: Whatever I say now is going to be twisted around. If I say exactly what I think, whether it's right or wrong, it's going to be twisted around, so I just don't want to talk about it."

The difficulty in firing Jauron is that it probably wouldn't solve anything. The problem during Buffalo's 1-4 start has been the offense, and the Bills are not in a position to change their offensive philosophy at this stage of the year no matter who is wearing the head coach's headset. The team already fired offensive coordinator Turk Schonert on the eve of the regular season, replacing him with quarterbacks coach Alex Van Pelt, but Van Pelt has been hamstrung by a rash of injuries along the offensive line.

So the Jauron era lives on for now, even as anger and skepticism in Buffalo reach a critical mass.

"That's the job in that position, and I clearly haven't been able to reach [the players] to help them, particularly in these last three games, to get them over the hump, to get us where we win," said Jauron. "I understand the criticism."



JETS: In what was a good news-bad news scenario on Monday night, the New York Jets were left accentuating the negative.

On a night in which wide receiver Braylon Edwards made a spectacular debut with the team, Gang Green was let down in its 31-27 loss by a defense that had major trouble getting the Miami Dolphins off the field.

The attacking nature of the Jets' defense through the first four weeks was marginalized by the Dolphins' ability to gain big chunks of yards in the running game, in turn easing the pressure on Miami quarterback Chad Henne, who had a strong night throwing the football.

For the night, the Jets allowed 413 yards, 9-of-14 third-down conversions, did not force a turnover or generate a sack, and allowed the Dolphins to boast a more than seven-minute advantage in time of possession.

"It was a complete embarrassment by our defense and by me, obviously we need to prepare better," said head coach Rex Ryan. "I didn't have the defense prepared the way they should have been, and I take full responsibility for that. I've never been involved in a game like that in my life; our offense did tremendous and gave us every opportunity to win the game...I'm just kind of at a loss for words with our defensive performance. We made that quarterback look like Dan Marino."

The silver lining in the loss was the evolution of an offense that seemed to go from mediocre to explosive with Edwards wearing a Jets uniform for the first time.

The former Pro Bowl receiver, acquired in a trade with the Browns last week, caught five passes for 64 yards, scored one touchdown on a toe-tapping three- yard catch in the first quarter, and should have been credited with another TD on a play that was marked out at the 1-yard line in the fourth quarter.

Eleven of Mark Sanchez's 12 completions on the night went to wide receivers, and the vertical threat that Edwards presented seemed to free things up a bit for a running game that piled up 138 ground yards.

"I think everyone saw it; he's a big time receiver," said Ryan of Edwards. That's one thing we did right last week, making that trade for him. I think he's going to be a huge factor for us."

"I felt really good," said the former first-rounder. "I think the best things about this team are everybody knows all the assignments and where everyone else is supposed to be. All the wide receivers know the playbook and where everyone is supposed to be. Every time I had a question on the field they were very helpful. I like our offense and I think we can get better going into the rest of the season."



PATRIOTS: It's a position in which Bill Belichick is not very accustomed to being: the position of having to defend quarterback Tom Brady.

Though the three-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback was by no means the only culprit in the Patriots' 20-17 overtime road loss to former New England assistant Josh McDaniels and the Broncos on Sunday, there is no doubt that fewer missed throws from Brady would have altered the result on the scoreboard.

Brady was a respectable 19-of-33 for 215 yards and two touchdowns in the loss. but was outplayed by Denver's Kyle Orton (35-of-48, 330 yards, 2 TD, 1 INT) and missed on two potentially giant plays.

A would-be touchdown to Randy Moss in the end-zone during the first half was the first, and an underthrown mis-connection with Wes Welker late in the fourth quarter was the other huge one.

But at his Monday press conference, Belichick was quick to spread the blame around.

"It's everybody," said Belichick. "It's the receivers, tight ends, backs, the quarterback. It's no different in the passing game on offense than it is on defense. It's protecting to throw the ball and hit whatever the receivers are, whatever the passing combination you have, whether you're running - then, it involves the backs, tight ends and receivers - that combination displaces the defense enough so the quarterback has a place to throw, and the receivers are open, and the protection is there for him to get it off. That is the offensive coordination of the passing game.

"We need to do a better job on that all the way around - that's everybody. That's all 11 guys out there on the field. It's not one man in the passing game [and] it's not one man in pass defense; it's all 11. And it's coaching, too."





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