After a nondescript first half that saw Miami’s Dan Carpenter and
New York’s Jay Feely exchange field goals, things got wild and wacky in
the third quarter thanks to a rejuvenated Ted Ginn, Jr., who ran back
two kickoffs for touchdowns, and an opportunistic veteran Jason Taylor
on defense. When the dust kicked up by the legendary swirling winds
settled, the Dolphins were victorious, 30-25, to improve to 3-4 on the
season and 3-0 in the AFC East.

“They’re always like this,” said Taylor, who has been a part of more
of these games than anyone else on the Dolphins. “It’s the Jets,
they’re always like this. It’s always sweet when you beat the Jets, but
there was a lot of talk this week. Talk is cheap. Let the pads speak”

“It’s a little different, always coming down to the last minute,”
Dolphins running back Ronnie Brown said. “Obviously I would rather just
win the game and know you have it in your grasp and not come down to
the last minute. I think I’m going to develop high blood pressure
if we keep doing this.”

Taylor’s 48-yard fumble return for a touchdown, the ninth touchdown
of his career and sixth by fumble, was sandwiched in between a 100-yard
kickoff return by Ginn and a 101-yarder, marking the first time that
has happened in the same game in Dolphins history. His second return
was even more impressive as it appeared he was bottled up in the middle
of the field near the 20 but he kept his feet and found the open field
down the right sideline to pay dirt.

“I was just trying to find an opening. I’m like a mouse trapped in
the corner,” Ginn said. “You always wonder how that mouse gets out, but
he gets creative and I tried to get creative and I came up out of
there. It’s just something I’ve been doing for years and as long as you
keep it in the back of your mind to go out and just constantly make
plays, that’s all I can do.”

Ginn’s first return came after Feely’s career-long 55-yard field
goal gave the Jets a short-lived 6-3 lead, and then Taylor pounced on a
loose ball after Paul Soliai stripped running back Shonn Greene of the
ball and sprinted into the end zone to give Miami a 17-6 lead and stun
the home crowd of 77,531. But suddenly the Jets’ offense came alive
after Sanchez and company had been stifled to that point and came up
with some big plays to keep pace, aided by one big special teams play.

Davone Bess muffed a punt at his own 26 and New York recovered.
Rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez finished off the drive with a 1-yard
quarterback keeper to cut the deficit to 17-13, but Ginn made it 24-13
just like that on the next return to help Miami regain momentum.

Of course clearly momentum meant nothing in this game as Sanchez
came right back and hit Jerricho Cotchery on a 53-yard pass play, most
of that coming after the catch. Two plays later he found Braylon
Edwards from 19 yards out as Edwards made a one-handed catch and
dragged Sean Smith and Chris Clemons into the end zone. The two-point
attempt failed to make it a 24-19 ballgame

Chad Henne engineered a 13-play, 67-yard drive that ate up 7:47 of
clock and he tried for two points but failed, leaving it a 30-19
ballgame, and Sanchez delivered again, taking his team 81 yards on just
six plays and capping it off with a 16-yard touchdown pass to tight end
Dustin Keller. He initially converted the two-point conversion but the
Jets were flagged for an illegal shift and he misfired the next time to
keep it a five-point game at 30-25.

Miami’s defense held strong on the desperation last drive by
Sanchez, even though he converted one 4th-and-10 by hitting Keller for
a 16-yard completion behind linebacker Reggie Torbor. The Dolphins
answered with a sack by Randy Starks that set up 4th-and-13 from the 15
and when Sanchez’s desperation pass sailed out of the end zone they
left the Meadowlands victorious.

“Obviously, all week long we had a bad taste in our mouth from the
New Orleans game. We talked an awful lot about finishing,” said
Dolphins Head Coach Tony Sparano, who is now 3-1 versus the Jets. “I
thought our defense played really well today. I think they ran the ball
38 times (40) and averaged 3.2 yards per carry during the course of
this game. That’s a good running football team out there. That’s a good
football team period. But I thought our defense really rose up and
played well. They did a great job of finishing. This team has done that
before and they did it again today.”

The Jets came into the game leading the league in rushing with an
average of 184.9 yards per game and made it known early on they were
going to try to run the ball down Miami’s throat. By game’s end they
had rushed the ball 40 times for 127 yards, with Thomas Jones doing the
bulk of the work to the tune of 102 yards on 27 carries, but their
average of just 3.2 yards per carry was a testament to Miami’s
defensive line and linebackers.

Sanchez was forced to try to beat the Dolphins with his arm and had
a better performance than the first time these two teams met on Monday
night three weeks ago, completing 20-of-35 passes for 265 yards and two
touchdowns. He also rushed for one touchdown and almost pulled out the
win at the end, but defensive players like Taylor, Joey Porter, Jason
Ferguson, and the rest would not let that happen.

“It was great for our defense because all year and even through this
game we kept having chances to get off the field and we kept feeling
like we were letting the offense down and letting the team down,”
Porter said, “We had three chances. We were up by 11 points and we come
back out and they score a touchdown on us in four or five plays. We did
that like three times, and even on the 4th-and-10 today we still gave
up the big play and we were just down on ourselves.

“But to come up and at the end and do get a stop, it’s something for
us to grow on. We’ve been reading in the paper how we can’t finish, but
to finish like we did today and be 3-0 in the division, we’ll take it.”

SWEET REDEMPTION FOR GINN: From the head coach on
down, everyone was singing Ginn’s praises after the game because they
had been rallying around him all week in the face of all of the
criticism that was coming in his direction from the fans and the media.
To see him have such an impact on the outcome of such an important game
brought smiles to the faces of Sparano and Ginn’s teammates.

Ginn became the first player in Dolphins history to return two
kickoffs in the same game for touchdowns and the first in the NFL since
Green Bay’s Travis Williams in 1967 to do it in the same quarter. His
101-yard return was the second longest in franchise history.

“Listen. Teddy Ginn takes an awful lot. But this kid’s a resilient
guy, he really is, and I’ve seen this before, you just haven’t,”
Sparano said. “I’ve seen Teddy Ginn bounce back and come back and make
big plays for this football team. It’s the reason that we’ve got him.
He did a heck of a job today. He made two huge plays and had a
tremendous, tremendous week of practice. He had really good focus and
made two big plays in this football game.

“There’s no question we shook some things up this week (by pulling
Ginn out of the starting lineup on offense), purposely so. There’s no
reason for anybody to feel comfortable when you’re 2-4, no reason. I
don’t care who it is. But Teddy did a great job. Now some people, they
rise up, some people they don’t. Teddy rose up today.”

Sparano congratulated Ginn after the first return and Ginn was happy
to keep his head coach on his side and Sparano joked that all he could
think of as Ginn sped by him on that sideline was, “Keep running fast.”

Ginn acknowledged this was a turning point for him and he is looking forward to keeping it going next week at New England.

“It was a hard week and a tough week just on myself,” he said. “The
guys are going to talk about you and the media’s going to talk about
you but as long as I can stay confident within myself I can come out
and make plays whenever. But this was probably one of the toughest
weeks I’ve ever experienced playing football and last week was one of
my toughest games I ever had and the worst game of my career. Just to
come back like I came back and make it as big as it was playing the
Jets in a big game in our division and put them down was great for us.”

Taylor called Ginn’s second kickoff return one of the best returns he’d ever seen.

“I’m very happy for the kid,” Taylor said. “He’s had a tough week
and he’s had a tough season. Really since he was picked in the draft
people have been on him and scrutinizing him and not really giving him
a chance. So if anybody in this locker room deserved to have a good
game it was Teddy and he went out there and did it. You have to give
him all the credit. The guys in front of him blocked well and for
whatever reason they kept kicking the ball to him and he made them pay
for it. I couldn’t be happier for him. Good for him.”

DOPLHINS TIDBITS: Rookie safety Chris Clemons and
rookie cornerbacks Vontae Davis and Sean Smith all were in the starting
lineup against the New York Jets. It was the first career start for
Clemons, a fifth-round pick from Clemson. Davis, a first-round pick
from Illinois and Smith, a second round selection from Utah became the
first rookie cornerbacks in the team’s 43-year history to open a game
at both corner positions. It was also the first career start for Davis.
Smith and Davis each had six tackles and Clemons had three.

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING
Miami: R. Brown 11-27, R. Williams 8-27, L. Polite 1-3, C. Henne 3-(-5).
New York:: T. Jones 27-102, S. Greene 8-18, M. Sanchez 4-6, J. Cotchery 1-1.

PASSING
Miami: C. Henne 12-21-0-112, R. Brown 0-1-0-0.
New York: M. Sanchez 20-35-0-265.

RECEIVING
Miami: R. Williams 2-41, J. Haynos 2-20, D. Bess 4-18, A. Fasano 2-16, G. Camarillo 1-15, R. Brown 1-2.
New York: D. Keller 8-76, B. Edwards 4-74, J. Cotchery 3-70, T. Jones 1-28, D. Clowney 3-16, T. Richardson 1-1.