The Dolphins went into Sunday's game jinxed. First of all, the Green Bay Packers had never beaten the Dolphins. And if that wasn't enough, Dan Marino appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated this week, thereby jinxing the Dolphins to certain doom.

Well, I guess the football gods didn't read Sports Illustrated this week, because the Dolphins beat the Packers on Sunday by a score of 24-14.

Don't be mislead by the score, however, because this game was not very close. The Dolphins did everything they wanted to for the first 3 quarters of the game, taking a 24-0 lead into the 4th quarter before coasting to a victory. They ran, they passed and they played enough defense to win a convincing victory over the Pack.

The game basically went like this: During the first quarter, each team tested the other, playing pretty evenly and pretty conservatively. At first, neither the Packers nor the Dolphins looked great, but they didn't look terrible. Both teams moved the ball tentatively and each team managed to get the ball into field goal range with a mixture of short passes, runs and screen passes. The only real difference was that the Packers' field goal attempt hit the upright and the Dolphins' was good. At one point, however, Favre threw 5 incompletions in a row, which was an omen of things to come. At the end of the first quarter, the Dolphins lead 3-0.

In the second quarter, the Dolphins started by sacking Brett Favre with some good push on the left side by Jeff Cross and Craig Veasey. Then the Dolphins put IRVING SPIKES into the game. The reason that I capitalized his name is that on his first 3 carries of the game, Spikes got 41 yards (7, 11, and 23 yards). By the end of the quarter, Spikes would carry 9 times for 71 yards. Spikes finally put some real fire into the offense and the Dolphins took the ball down the field twice in the quarter, ending one touchdown drive with a pass to Keith Jackson and the other with a pass to Keith Byars. The Packers would fumble away one of their drives (Favre fumbled without even being touched) and the clock would run out on the other.

The Dolphins had a 17-0 lead at the half and had totally dominated the Packers.

The Dolphins opened the second half by taking the ball straight down the field on the Packers, ending in a 7 yard touchdown run by Terry Kirby. This would be the Dolphins' final score of the game on a drive that would take 7:30 off the clock. The Packers did try to get back into the game, but after Favre had engineered a nice drive, he made a bad pass that was batted by Jeff Cross into the arms of Craig Veasey for Veasey's first professional interception. At this point in the game, the Dolphins pretty much abandoned a serious passing game and concentrated on the run. The Packers continued to try to get back into the game, but continued to make mistakes on offense that the Dolphins took advantage of. At the end of the third quarter, the Dolphins lead 24-0.

The fourth quarter was a very different game, with the Dolphins going to a "Prevent Nothing" defense and allowing the Packers to move the ball pretty much as they wanted to, while the offense just chewed up time and only attempted one pass the whole quarter. And the Packers took advantage of it, getting 2 touchdowns, but it didn't mean much because the Dolphins chewed up plenty of time and won the game, 24-14.

Overall, special mention goes to the Dolphins' offensive line, who allowed only 1 sack on a safety blitz and kept Reggie White, Sean Jones and the rest of the Packers defensive line at bay for most of the game. The other two times Marino was "sacked", he fell down by slipping on the grass long before anyone touched him. The Packers didn't get serious pressure on Dan all day. Also, the line opened enough holes for Dolphins' runners to get 93 yards rushing in the first half alone.

Of the 93 yards rushing that the Dolphins had in the first half, Irving Spikes had 71 of those yards. He squirted through holes, escaped tackles and showed good vision, good cutback ability, strength and smarts. He looked very, very good.

The defense also played a good game, with the defensive line finally getting some push up the middle and from the left side. Their coverage was mixed, but much better than last week, even without Troy Vincent. Bryan Cox filled in admirably at middle linebacker and Singleton and Beavers had good games.

All in all, the Dolphins played an excellent game against a very good team, and made some definite moves in the right direction with their defense and their running game. Hopefully, Spikes will continue to see more playing time in the future and will become an integral part of the Dolphins' offense.