MIAMI (AP) – Maybe the Miami Dolphins still could use Jason Taylor.
Playing without wide receiver Braylon Edwards for the opening 15 minutes, Dustin Keller caught a 24-yard touchdown pass from Mark Sanchez on the game’s first series, Taylor punched the air after sacking Miami’s Chad Henne later in the period, and the New York Jets led the Dolphins 7-0 after one quarter Sunday night.
The Jets went 72 yards with relative ease on a 10-play drive to open the game, Keller shaking free of a falling-down Yeremiah Bell near the goal line for the first score of the night. And on Miami’s ensuing possession, Taylor burst past Dolphins guard Pat McQuistan to force Henne into a hurried third-down incompletion.
But the real fireworks came a bit later when Taylor sacked Henne, then did his celebratory punch – followed by an arms-spread-wide pose as he got booed following a good play for the first time in the Dolphins’ home stadium.
If nothing else, it might have taken attention off the Jets’ latest distraction: the Edwards situation.
The Jets announced about 90 minutes before kickoff they were benching Edwards for the first quarter, as punishment following his arrest for drunken-driving in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. As soon as the clock showed :00 to end the opening quarter, Edwards marched onto the field.
“We’ve made our disappointment clear to Braylon,” Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum said in a statement released by the team. “Now he must deal with the consequences of his actions as the legal process runs its course, and the league will determine the appropriate discipline under the guidelines of the collective bargaining agreement.”
It was Miami’s home opener, and the crowd was star-studded.
Fergie and Marc Anthony performed the national anthem, Gloria and Emilio Estefan posed for countless photos on their way in, and Kim Kardashian was turning heads in the Dolphins’ newly opened nightclub behind one of the end zones.
The big story, at least in Miami, was the return of Taylor to the building he spent a dozen years calling home.
He was the Jets’ lone representative for the pregame coin toss, drawing a modest chorus of boos – which he neatly avoided after warming up a half-hour earlier by leaving the field at the same time his former team was going through the tunnel toward the locker rooms.
Taylor spent 12 of his first 13 NFL seasons with the Dolphins – and was an absolute thorn to the Jets. He had 100 tackles, more than he posted against any other opponent, against the team that he once professed to hate. Even in recent days, Taylor said that if he had his way, he’d likely still be in Miami.
But when Bill Parcells didn’t offer Taylor a contract for 2010, the NFL’s active sacks leader had to change course. And that led to Taylor deciding his long chase of a Super Bowl ring would continue with the Jets, a surprising new chapter in the long New York-Miami rivalry.
Throughout game week, however, Taylor’s return to Miami almost seemed like an ancillary part of the circus.
Edwards dominated the headlines in New York for much of the week. Star cornerback Darrelle Revis was ruled out with a strained left hamstring, leaving the Jets without perhaps their three top defenders – adding linebacker Calvin Pace (broken right foot) and nose tackle Kris Jenkins (knee, out for season) – for the Miami matchup.
And of course, Jets coach Rex Ryan is not a crowd favorite in Miami, especially after making an obscene gesture to a fan at a mixed martial arts event not far from the Dolphins’ stadium during Pro Bowl week in January.
By now, the Jets are likely used to distractions. They’ve had plenty of them already this season, from Ryan’s off-color banter throughout the HBO “Hard Knocks” series that chronicled training camp and coincided with Revis’ lengthy holdout, then allegations that a female television reporter from a Mexican station was harrassed while covering the team.
The Dolphins took a far more businesslike approach to the week.
Starting 2-0 is almost forgotten territory for the Dolphins, who began each of the previous four seasons 0-2. They came into Sunday looking to reach 3-0 for the first time since 2002.
And their start came in a manner Taylor would enjoy. Miami allowed 10 points in each of its opening two games, defense carrying a club that managed a total of only 29 points in those victories.
That offense sputtered to start Sunday as well, netting only 16 yards in the first 15 minutes.
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