Things to consider while wondering if the Patriots have noticed they've got this thing, this little habit where sometimes, once in a while, they tend to fumble the ball a little? And that maybe it's time to work on that...

*Hey offensive line, how's this for a "metaphor?" If his Visa card gave Tom Brady the kind of protection he got from you guys, someone would've stolen his identity, maxed him out, and put him on the FBI's kiddie porn watch list and Homeland Security would be connecting him to Al Qaeda.

*Maybe it's time to lose the beards, fellas. If I played like that, I'd be shaving my head to pay homage to Jason Taylor. Hell, I'd let Taylor shave it for me, then put a prison tattoo on me that says "Taylor's Cell Bitch." I mean, he sure treated you like it. "The Girls" might have gotten to Andy Dufresne, but at least he put up a fight.

*This was a division game on the road, and you hardly ever win those. So I'm trying not to overreact. The right side of my brain is like Buzz Lightyear when he and Sherriff Woody are lost at the gas station saying "This is no time to panic." But the left side is Woody saying "This is the perfect time to panic!" It's the way they got beaten that bothers me the most:

• They knew the Dolphins like to come hard at the QB and were completely unable to handle it.
• They knew fumbles have been killing them, and they left the ball on the ground 4 times, losing 3.
• Again, even though they were running the ball effectively, Josh McDaniels insisted they keep chucking it, almost getting Brady killed in the process.
• After the double pass TD play was called back, the defense, which fought hard all day, took the field so completely demoralized that it bordered on giving up.

*Without a doubt the best player on the Patriots this year isn't the franchise player, it's not the perennial All Pro defensive end, and it's not the rookie phenom...it's Ty Warren. For what seems like the tenth week in a row, he stuffed every running attempt and gets better at pressuring the QB week by week, even though LJ Shelton and Vernon Carey were doubling him all day. It's getting to the point that teams might start running away from his side, and take their chances with Richard Seymour.

*No word from Ron Borges and Kevin Mannix about what they think of trading Bledsoe for a draft pick (that became Warren) now.

*The torture of sitting through this game was only made worse by having to endure the inane prattling of the gawdawful Randy Cross. I can tolerate him calling Ben Watson "Daniel Graham." I can put up with him calling every guy on the Pats roster "Dan" (Doug Gabriel, introduce yourself to the folks), but when you've got a player named Yeremiah Bell, can you just NOT make a "Yeremiah was a bullfrog" reference? Is that too much to ask? Do you think the poor bastard hasn't been listening to it his whole life? My parents almost named me "Jeremiah" before that song came out, and if they had, "bullfrog" jokes from nitwits like Cross would've had me climbing a tower with a rifle a long time ago. And it was Three Dog Night, not Creedence Clearwater, dumbass.

*If I were the king of the world, I'll tell you what I'd do: I'd make it illegal for a newspaper columnist to write about the kicker or the punter. I'm sick of guys who don't like or understand football doing articles about these guys. What they do isn't interesting, and all we need to know about them is what their numbers are, period. Having said that, I now brace myself for the onslaught of the hacks dusting off their "What are the Pats gonna do about Ken Walter?" stories from 2004. Walter was awful, just awful yesterday. Worse than the O-line even.

*I think we can officially declare Watson a decent, not a great tight end. I'm sorry he got hurt on the play, but let's not let it obscure the fact that he had already dropped the ball before he got hit. I like the expression "He heard the footprints;" it applies here. It would've been a hell of a catch, but it's the kind the great ones make. Gonzalez, Gates, Shockey, Winslow...all would've made the play then taken the hit. Troy Brown's half his size and he's been doing it for 27 years. I think Watson is the tight end of the future, and always will be.

*I have to confess: I spend a lot of time on this team, and I still can't distinguish one defensive back from another. With the exception of Assante Samuel, who's sort of iconic, they're all just interchangeable parts to me; second and third stringers and nicklebacks they picked up on waivers. I still have to look at the roster every time one of them makes a play so I can keep Artrell Hawkins straight from Willie Andrews or Chad Scott from Ellis Hobbs. Did anyone else know that Ray Mickens was #38?

*I like Mike Wright but when Vince Wilfork went out, Miami attacked the middle of the line,and Rex Hadnot (does he ever abbreviate that with "Hadn't," Randy Cross undoubtedly wants to know), who was getting is ass kicked by VW all day, was consistently able to take Wright out of his gaps.

*I would've fired McDaniels at halftime and given Ivan Fears or Dante Scarnecchia a battlefield promotion. How can you have your offense so thoroughly unprepared? Matt Light and Nick Kaczur were each left one-on-one against Taylor, and we've known they can't handle him for six years now. And when Dillon has more rushing yards than Brady has passing yards, and he's done it on 16 carries, do you think maybe a 17th or 18th carry might be a good idea?

*Maybe it's just that I'm in a bad mood, but the caveman commercial just isn't funny. I don't even know what it's an ad for, but I just want who's ever in charge of these things to know, it's not working. Have your spokesman be a hot girl instead.