 When the Miami Dolphins went up to MetLife Stadium, they were greeted by a ton of Dolphins fans who were on site for the annual MetLife Takeover held by the folks at DolfansNYC, who expected yet another victory as they went up against the thousands of Jets fans in an attempt to mitigate New York's home field advantage. Unfortunately, no amount of cheering would have been able to get the inept Miami offense, as they were held to a grant total of zero points up until the final seconds of the game, when the Jets defense ultimately stopped caring and let the Dolphins score a touchdown as time elapsed. To add insult to injury, kicker Cody Parkey missed the extra point, which made the final score of that game 20-6 in the Jets favor. It was humiliating. But on Sunday, the Jets will be coming to Miami for a rematch, and the Dolphins currently stand at 3-2, one game behind the New England Patriots (4-2) and tied for second with the Buffalo Bills (also 3-2). The Jets are currently at 3-3 after arguably having a victory against the Patriots stolen from them by the referees. So needless to say, both teams will have a chip on their shoulders, but here are three reasons why the Dolphins will get their revenge on the Jets for their previous loss. Lawrence Timmons at LB When the Dolphins went to MetLife Stadium, they were missing a key component of their defense. Linebacker Lawrence Timmons went AWOL before the team's opening week against the Los Angeles Chargers, and he was then suspended indefinitely by the team, which left him unavailable for the Jets game. Now, Timmons is on the roster and is ready to rumble. In just three games, Timmons has already racked up a total of 21 tackles, several of which have gone for either no gain or a loss of yards. As of now, Miami has the fourth-ranked rushing defense in the NFL, and Timmons is an important part of that. The Jets have the 18th ranked rushing offense in the NFL, but they racked up 103 yards against the Dolphins in Week 3 with Chase Allen and Mike Hull platooning to take the place of Timmons. Since Timmons' return, the defense as a whole has taken a drastic leap forward. Which means they won't be able to run over the Miami defense, and subsequently, they - logically speaking - won't be able to simply shred the secondary to pieces like they did last time. The presence of Timmons will likely do wonders for the Dolphins defense as they face Josh McCown a second time, and this time, it could very well lead to a victory. Dolphins offense gaining rhythm The offense still isn't firing on all cylinders, but over the past couple of games, there have been signs that the team is starting to figure out what it takes to get things going, through plenty of two-TE sets and extra emphasis placed on running back Jay Ajayi. But the emphasis on Ajayi is exactly what the Jets were waiting for during their first matchup, and it cost Miami any semblance of having an effective offense, as the multiple screen passes called by coach Gase were complete failures each time. Now, however, there seems to be more of an emphasis on passing the ball forward rather than sideways, and although Cutler is still making a few poor decisions, he too seems to be getting into a better rhythm, meaning the Dolphins offense could be on the verge of being, dare we say, decent? With the defense holding teams to such a low point total, this may be a situation where we flashback to the Dave Wannstedt days, where the focus would be on the defense, and the offense just needed to score at least 14 points. Ideally, they would get more than 14 points per game, but in this case, all that is really needed is competence. They seem to be getting to that point. Adam Gase There was some initial skepticism regarding the Dolphins head coach and his overall ability to be a coach after the team's struggles to even look competent throughout the first several weeks of the season, but once again, Adam Gase has proven that he does have a good head on his shoulders and he knows what he needs to do to get the job done.
After the game against the Tennessee Titans, Gase revealed that the playbook had been greatly scaled back, though he didn't specify what the reasons were. To speculate, it's very possible that Jay Cutler didn't have nearly as much knowledge of the playbook as we had been led to believe, which would explain why the offense consisted almost completely of ineffective screen passes and running Jay Ajayi into proverbial brick walls. But now it seems the playbook is starting to open up again, and Gase is slowly getting his team back into regular season form, the same form that they possibly showcased during their winning streak last season after spending the first several weeks as one of the most inept teams in the NFL, not unlike this season. Is this all simply proof that there is a method to Gase's madness? Perhaps. But the true reason why Gase is a big reason the Dolphins will get revenge on Sunday is simply because of one thing: Gase is not known for making the same mistake twice, and so far, any assumptions made that he has made the same mistake, as eventually been proven wrong. This time, it may be wiser to just assume he knows what he's doing, and that we should all trust the process and wait and see what he does. This story was written by Luis Sung. Follow him on Twitter: @LuisDSung
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