His mouth roared, play soared

Dolphin LB Porter backs up comments

FOXBOROUGH - Hanging from the guardrails that ringed the field level tunnel entrance at Gillette Stadium, a handful of Dolphin fans began chanting "Jo-ey! Jo-ey! Jo-ey!" when they spotted linebacker Joey Porter as he made his way to the visitors' locker room.

Porter glanced up at the fans and shot them a look that seemed to say, "Now that's what I'm talkin' about!"

Final score: Miami 38, New England 13.

Matt Cassel: 19 of 31, 131 yards, and one touchdown to go along with one interception and one fumble. And, oh yes, one badly bruised ego.

Joey Porter: six tackles (five solo), three sacks for 15 yards, three quarterback hits, one forced fumble (on a strip of Cassel). And, oh yes, one supremely satisfying AFC East victory over the defending conference champs.

What else was there to say?

Well, the throng of reporters surrounding Porter's locker waiting for him to emerge from the shower feared the talkative outside linebacker might suddenly decide to be silent after he called out Cassel last Wednesday, saying, "I know he's not a Tom Brady, so if it's not Tom Brady, it shouldn't be that hard," and that the Dolphins' defense planned "to treat him like you'd treat a backup . . . you throw the kitchen sink at him."

When he finished getting dressed, Porter turned to face the media and did not back down from the comments.

"I'll say what I said before, you really don't realize how good Tom Brady is until he's not out there," Porter said. "I mean, they were averaging like 45 points a game or something like that with him and this was a different team without him leading them. Not taking anything away from Matt Cassel, but that's just some tough shoes to fill - for any backup to come in and play behind [Brady]. What he did for that offense, if you come in and try to match his intensity, it just isn't going to happen if you're not getting the reps."

Which was why Porter was perplexed when his remarks seemed to cause controversy.

"All I said was the facts: This guy is not Tom Brady," Porter said. "I mean, we won, and that's the biggest thing, for us to come out here and play good as a team."

Porter wanted to clarify one thing, however. He said he never guaranteed a win.

"I just said that they were not the same team without Tom Brady," he said. "Y'all were the ones who said I guaranteed a win. I said it would be good for us to come in here and get our first victory."

While Miami's offense, led by quarterback Chad Pennington and guided by offensive coordinator Dan Henning, the former Boston College coach, threw the kitchen sink - in the form of one Ronnie Brown - at the Patriots' defense, Miami's defense, coordinated by former Syracuse coach Paul Pasqualoni, did the same to Cassel and the Patriots' offense, which was held to 216 yards on 59 plays for an average gain of 3.7 yards.

"We have a couple of different packages and we came after him a little bit," Porter said of Cassel. "We made him make some tough decisions. We just didn't let him sit back there and make him feel like he had all day. When we did that, it made him throw the ball off rhythm, and our guys were able to make some plays.

"But we got to the quarterback all day today."

The Dolphins, in fact, forced two turnovers and had four sacks.

Porter recorded the first of two in a row against Cassel when he dropped him for a 5-yard loss on first and goal from the Miami 7. When Porter celebrated with a sack dance he called "The Flywheel," in which he mimics a shoveling motion, the Gillette Stadium crowd of 68,756 registered its displeasure.

"Oh, they were so dumb," said Miami linebacker Channing Crowder of the fans' reaction. "Don't ever boo him or cuss him, because that's just going to get him going. I should've warned their fans to shut up, but they kept going and he had two more sacks, knocking the [heck] out of people all game.

"I hope they keep booing him."

On the next play, rookie defensive end Phillip Merling dropped Cassel for a 4-yard loss, setting up a third-and-16 pass attempt that was picked off by defensive end Randy Starks.

"There was not any extra pressure to back him up," Crowder said about Porter. "Not that we felt the same way, but him being our captain, our emotional leader, he wanted to go out there and prove something to 'em."

Porter sacked Cassel for an 8-yard loss just before the end of the first half, then registered his third of the day when he dropped backup Kevin O'Connell for a 2-yard loss in the fourth quarter. It marked the sixth time Porter has had three or more sacks in a game and the first time since Dec. 24, 2005, when he had three at Cleveland for the Steelers.

The last time Miami had a player record as many sacks in a game was Dec. 18, 2005, when Jason Taylor, the All-Pro defensive end who was traded July 20 to the Redskins, had three vs. the Jets.

"We knew that we were better than how we played the first two weeks," Porter said. "It's easy for us to say that, but when you don't have the victories, I mean, nobody's really going to believe it. We knew how good we thought we were, just in preseason, but we came out and dropped the first two games and there went the comparisons with the same ol' [1-15] Miami Dolphins.

"But in our hearts we knew we were a better team than that, and I hope today we showed that."

Michael Vega can be reached at vega@globe.com.