Heading into the season, it seemed logical that a Week 9 matchup between the defending AFC East Division champion (Miami) and the team that had won the crown and advanced to the Super Bowl a year prior (New England) would be vital in terms of the fight for 2009 supremacy.</p><p>And then for a while, it wasn't.</p><p>A 3-0 start by the New York Jets - which included a win over New England - coupled with the Patriots' generally shaky beginning and an 0-3 stumble by the Dolphins, had everyone within Rex Ryan's gravitational pull claiming both the reigning and recent champs had become mere green footnotes.</p><p>Those tides, however, have turned yet again.</p><p>Ryan's suddenly punchless gang has tumbled to four losses in five subsequent games - twice to the Dolphins - leaving a 3-4 Miami squad just two games off the pace of a 5-2 New England team that found itself to the tune of 94 points in two games before last week's bye.</p><p>A New England win, and the division is again the playpen of Mssrs. Brady, Belichick and Moss.</p><p>A Miami win improves its record in the East to 4-0, narrows the first-place gap from two games to one and goes a long way toward proving coach Tony Sparano's claim - following last week's encore against the Jets - that the road to the division title will still show flecks of teal and orange.</p><p>Sparano is 7-2 in his tenure against the AFC East, and has won five straight.</p><p>Kick returner Ted Ginn Jr. was named AFC Special Teams Player of the Week for his role in the 30-25 triumph, in which he scored on runbacks of 101 and 100 yards, becoming the first player in league history with two 100-plus yard scores in the same game.</p><p>Elsewhere, the Dolphins were outgained as a team, 378-104.</p><p>"All you've been preaching all week long with these guys is to keep grinding and finish games, keep grinding and finishing games, keep your head down and finish games," Sparano said. "They did that. We had a great week of practice. It didn't show in some phases, but they fought, they fought hard during the course of this game. Their effort was outstanding all over the place.</p><p>"I think we have a heck of a challenge ahead of us but this team will be excited about it. We gave ourselves something to be excited about right now. We will just put our head down and keep grinding the way we do."</p><p>The Patriots, meanwhile, return from a brief tour of the NFL's laughingstock department, which resulted in a 59-0 shelling of the then-winless Tennessee Titans - in which Tom Brady threw for six touchdowns - and a 35-7 rout of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before a packed house at London's Wembley Stadium.</p><p>In those two, New England outgained its foes, 1,033-426, registered 50 first downs to 19 against, and saw Brady complete 52-of-66 passes for 688 yards and nine touchdowns.</p><p>"When we go out and execute well, we score points," he said. "It's a much more concerted effort in practice to get those things done. It's pretty easy for me to evaluate how I played and why I did something that nobody else would really know."</p><p>SERIES HISTORY</p><p>Miami holds a 48-36 lead in its all-time regular season series with New England, including an unconventional split of last year's home-and-home. The Dolphins earned a shocking 38-13 road victory at the Patriots in Week 3 of last season, but were dealt a 48-28 setback in the return matchup in South Florida during Week 12. The Pats swept the 2007 home-and-home with their longtime AFC East rival. The Dolphins have not won back-to-back games at New England since 1999-2000.</p><p>In addition to the regular season series, the teams have met three times in the postseason, with New England holding a 2-1 advantage there. The Patriots' most memorable postseason victory over Miami came in the 1985 AFC Championship, when New England escaped with a 31-14 triumph en route to its first-ever Super Bowl appearance. The clubs also met in AFC First-Round Playoff matchups in 1982 and 1997, with Miami winning the former (28-13) and New England taking the latter (17-3).