The Titans came up short in a loss to the Miami Dolphins Saturday falling 24-10. We take a look to see what the Miami sportswriters have to say about the Dolphins knocking off the Titans.

''The snapshot to this watershed day was the group hug a mob of Dolphins shared with Ricky Williams after his 19-yard touchdown sealed a 24-10 victory against Tennessee.

That moment answered the question whether the 2005 Dolphins have accepted their capricious running back after his self-imposed 2004 sabbatical, but it also spoke of the bond Nick Saban's team now enjoys.

''The team chemistry these guys have shown in the last five weeks of the season,'' coach Nick Saban said after the victory, ''is really what it's all about.''

That chemistry has helped these Dolphins forge a five-game winning streak that is longer than any Dave Wannstedt team ever managed and the longest for the franchise since 1999.

But in winning those five games, and in particular this final 2005 home game against the hapless Titans, the Dolphins have transformed from a flat, unexciting loser to a team that wishes the season could be extended yet one more month.

''We started fast but then we kind of hit a low and we couldn't get over the hump,'' linebacker Zach Thomas said. ''I'm just proud of the guys because we were 3-7 and we could have shut things down, but we kept fighting and we're not a bad team now.

''We just have to take this into next year.''

But it is ironic that some players who have helped the Dolphins during this turnaround might not be with the team in 2006.

Williams was the shining example of that after Saturday.''
Armando Salguero
Miami Herald

''Nobody had the heart to bring it up to Gus Frerotte on Christmas Eve, and it certainly isn't official this Christmas morning. But I'm afraid he was taking off his uniform at Dolphins Stadium for the last time Saturday.

It's brutal, but it's the National Football League.

It's Merry Christmas, Gus, you're toast.

On a 5-for-5 roll after beating Tennessee 24-10, the Dolphins are looking way beyond next Sunday's season finale in New England.

Nick Saban is thinking championship.

Meaning, long-term, no Frerotte.

Gus is 34. He's coming off his best of 12 pro seasons, with 17 touchdowns. And he'll be elsewhere next Christmas.

Of course, Saban wasn't admitting to thinking any such thoughts. Instead, he was talking about Frerotte's big first half of 11 completions in 19 throws for 131 yards, including two touchdown pitches to Chris Chambers, and how it wasn't all Gus' fault he tailed off to 3 for 11 for a meager 20 yards in the second half.

''Our timing was bad,'' Saban said. ''We were not doing a good job blocking inside [on pass protection]. They were blasting us.''

Ricky Williams produced the timing they needed, bursts of 35 and then 19 yards for the put-away touchdown. Not so incidentally, there's another Dolphin who isn't certain to be here another season, although his is a much more iffy deal than Frerotte's, with contingencies and possibilities that would stretch through the back page of this paper.

Again, you won't be hearing any of this from headquarters. It's still the season for winning, not for announcing roster revisions. There's next Sunday at New England, the game that could put this club at 9-7.

But a baker's dozen of them could be gone by next season. And that includes Sage Rosenfels, who has varied from inept to sensational in his few appearances.

Same reason. The Dolphins want to hang their helmets on a QB who can beat good teams regularly, the way this club handled good ones such as Denver and Carolina early.''
Edwin Pope
Miami Herald

''Ricky Williams showed he can again be a great running back.

But has Williams made himself worth enough that the Dolphins will get a great deal for him?

In general, the answer is no. The exception to that idea is that the Dolphins have general manager Randy Mueller, the man who traded Williams once before and had the vision to build the trade around conditional picks.

If the Dolphins choose to deal Williams this offseason -- an idea the team and Williams would like to pursue, for different reasons -- the only way to get proper value for Williams might be built around delayed gratification.

That's something Mueller was able to do when, as GM in New Orleans, he traded Williams to the Dolphins in 2002.

The original deal essentially was for a first-round pick in 2002 and a conditional, third-round pick in 2003.''
Jason Cole
Miami Herald