It's no secret that the Dolphins are still winless at home this season. Let's help give them an actual home-field advantage this Sunday. If you live in the Miami area get out to the game. There's still great seats available for low prices.

Tickets for Sunday's game vs. the Titans are down 12% this week. Hundreds of seats still available for $20 or less (Game avg: $100). http://tiny.cc/ix5yd

Over 3500 instant delivery eTickets available for Sunday's game, $62 avilable for less than $25. http://tiny.cc/17szy

Well, it's been a few weeks since I've had the privilege of exchanging questions with a blogger that represents the team the Dolphins are scheduled to face. The Bloguin Network doesn't currently have a Cincinnati Bengals or a Baltimore Ravens blog, so we had to do without what has become the most informative and interesting read of the week.

Please welcome in Drexel from Total Titans, the best Tennessee Titans blog on the web, to get us back on the right track. Be sure to check out the questions I answered for him regarding the Dolphins over there in the next couple days.

Phins Phocus: What are your feelings about the Titans signing Randy Moss? Do you think he's worth the antics? What kind of impact do you see him having on the offense?

Total Titans: I'm excited about the acquisition of Randy Moss for a few reasons.

First, signing a player of his caliber sends a positive message to the locker-room from the standpoint that team management is willing to do whatever it takes to provide the team with the ingredients to make a deep playoff run.

As for his antics, I'm somewhat confident that Jeff Fisher will do what it takes to prevent the enigmatic Moss from becoming a distraction.

Lastly, Moss's mere presence should provide more running room for Chris Johnson in the running game. Up-and-comer Kenny Britt was doing a great job as of late by playing the same role but unfortunately, he was recently bitten by the injury-bug, so he's out for several weeks. Moss should have no problem picking up where Kenny left off.

Phins Phocus: What are you hearing about Vince Young's ankle injury? Do you feel like the Titans' offense loses much of a step with Kerry Collins under center?

Total Titans: Young's ankle injury is a concern, but I'm expecting him to start against the Dolphins this Sunday. He's playing solid football and with each game, he's becoming more of a complete NFL quarterback rather than being just an athlete who merely plays the position.

Having an established veteran signal-caller such as Collins as the #2 is always a good thing for any franchise. However, even with KC's experience and despite his advancing age, the ability to still chuck the ball downfield, the offense is at its best when Vince Young is under center.

Phins Phocus: Evaluate the Titans' defense through the first-half of the season. Strengths? Weaknesses?

Total Titans: Through the season's halfway mark, the Titans defense has played a tough, physical brand of football that's consistently causing turnovers, taking down opposing quarterbacks and forcing the opposition to constantly keep their heads on a swivel.

Strengths: Creating turnovers, getting pressure on opposing quarterbacks by way of a no-name front four.

Weaknesses: The defense has given up its share of yards in the passing game. Opposing offenses have had levels of success matriculating the ball down the field via the passing attack.

Phins Phocus: By all means, Chris Johnson is having a very productive year. He hasn't dominated like he did a year ago, though. What are defenses doing differently to contain him a bit?

Total Titans: Johnson's still getting his yards, but it's taking more carries this season. Also, what's missing from his game is a drop in long runs.

I'll attribute CJ's "struggles" to a couple of factors. Opposing defenses are using the eight men in the box strategy to prevent CJ from breaking the big one. Of course, with Randy Moss on board, hopefully, this trend will end.

Also, CJ's had a bit more wear and tear this year. He's carrying the ball more, which naturally, is going to make him more susceptible to nagging/lingering injuries which inevitably, is going to hinder his ability a bit to perform at his highest level.

Phins Phocus: Finally, who do you see winning Sunday and why? Final Score?

Total Titans: I think the Titans will come out swinging in Randy Moss's much-anticipated debut. Miami's a tough team that win or loss, will keep things interesting but in the end, I'll take the Titans in a close one.

Titans 20 Dolphins 16

I think I speak for everyone when I say I didn't see this coming. Not even the majority of irrational, impatient fans were ready to call for Henne's head after his disappointing three pick performance against the Ravens, which could just as easily been blamed on his receivers.

Yes, the offense has been lackluster the past few weeks, especially in the red zone, but it's hard to point the blame squarely on Henne's shoulders. Who would have envisioned the running game, which was this offense's identity a year ago, dropping off the way it has? Dan Henning was far from brilliant last season, but I don't think anyone guessed he would lose his mind the way he has despite finally having adequate weapons to work with.

Then again, Sparano reportedly explained the situation to Henne by saying the offense needed a "spark." That's hard to argue with considering this offense has only scored one touchdown in each of the last three weeks. But is starting Chad Pennington really the answer to the offense's struggles? And if he is, is winning now even worth compromising this franchise's future?

First things first, you can count on Pennington making fewer mistakes and displaying the leadership qualities Henne just doesn't seem to have. When you think about watching both quarterbacks leading the offense, there is a certain trust level there with Pennington and obviously the coaches feel the same way.

Having said that, the ceiling this offense has is now considerably lower. Henne has the arm strength to make any throw in football, which in theory should completely open up the offense when he is able to make sound decisions. With Pennington under center, though, the Dolphins will be playing ball-control offense by eliminating mistakes and shortening games.

If you can limit mistakes on offense and play solid defense, you should be able to compete with most teams. That is the same formula that won the 2008 AFC East championship after all. But with that style of play, comes a limit to how far this team can go. They may be even more capable than they were with Henne to sneak in as a wildcard with a late season playoff push, but it's hard to imagine a Pennington led offense knocking off an elite team unless the defense can somehow emerge as dominate overnight.

And it's Pennington's "noodle arm" that really restricts what he can do as an NFL quarterback. It's just a whole lot easier to play defense when you know the majority of the game is going to be played in a 15-yard box. That extra safety can creep up near the line of scrimmage, making it that much harder to run the football for a struggling ground attack, and corners can feel free to jump out routes, comebacks, and quick slants knowing there isn't much of threat that they will be beat deep.

And it was that way before Pennington had yet another season-ending shoulder injury last year. He looked pretty decent in the preseason, but I don't think we'll know until this Sunday if he's the same quarterback that led this team to 11 wins in 2008. With the same token, though, I'm pretty sure Pennington has never had a target quite as talented as Brandon Marshall to work with either. So there are still plenty of uncertainties about what we're going to get on Sunday.

I have too much respect for Pennington to even comprehend him going out and performing dreadfully. He's just too smart, too much of a competitor not to go out and do what he's always done. The bottom line is, speaking strictly about the short-team, Pennington very well could be this team's best chance at making the playoffs.

But when your dealing with a young, promising team like the Dolphins, the long-term outlook is also a big part of the equation. This isn't a team full of a bunch of veterans who's championship window is on the verge of closing. This is a very young team, who's future is much brighter than their present, in my humble opinion.

Why completely compromise the bright future this team has by possibly ending Henne's hopes of emerging as a franchise quarterback, when he's clearly showed enough potential for that to remain a possibility? The skeptic inside me sees how this could be an incredibly selfish move by Tony Sparano.

Hopefully this isn't the case, but if Sparano is feeling like his job is on the line this season and this is purely a stint to try and salvage the best possible record this year and ultimately lead to him keeping his job, that really isn't looking out for the best interest of this football team. The best interest of this football team would be to help establish a foundation for future success, unless of course Sparano feels like this current Dolphins team has what it takes to win the Super Bowl THIS season with Pennington at the helm.

That would be about the only way this makes sense in my mind. If you feel like your capable of winning a Super Bowl, you have to go all in. Things immediately become almost exclusively about the present.

And while the road to the Super Bowl is as wide open as it's ever been this year, and if the Dolphins can get hot here in the second-half of the season, who knows, they very well could put themselves in the title discussion. But going all in with this Dolphins' team is a pretty big gamble in my opinion considering they are two games back to the Jets and Pats in the division and have already lost to both at home.

Super Bowl caliber teams are at least very good if not great on at least one side of the ball. The Dolphins have all the potential in the world on defense, but they haven't given us any reason to believe they are ready to establish themselves as consistently one of the elite units in the league. Offensively? Well, there is a reason we're in the midst of a heated quarterback controversy in November.

That is the main reason why I'm not behind this quarterback change. I'm going to remain hopeful that Pennington leads this team back to the playoffs, but it's not like Henne wasn't capable of doing the same thing.

Yes, it's been frustrating that the Dolphins can't seem to take the next step as a football team and emerge as one of the league's elite teams, but come on now, the guy lost to the Jets, Patriots, Steelers, and Ravens- arguably the top four teams in the league. And he played winning football in two of those games.

Are the Dolphins really this impatient? Have they ever heard of the term "stay the course." Yesterday this team was headed in a clear direction. A direction that was currently frustrating because of underachievement, but one with hope for the future. Now though, I'm not so sure where this team is headed.

I'm not overly concerned about Sunday, or the rest of the season for that matter, but just the thought of starting the hunt for a franchise quarterback all over again when it seemed Chad Henne was so close on several occasions is just sickening. Maybe he will get another chance with this football team, and maybe he can still be that guy. But something tells me we're going to regret this day when we're stuck in another two to three year developmental stage with another rookie quarterback a year or two from now.

Apparently the Dolphins have had quite the eventful day based on the fact my phone has been blowing up all morning. I was in class and couldn't get the blog until now, but the 2010 Miami Dolphins just underwent quite the shakeup.

It started with news of the Dolphins signing veteran cornerback Al Harris, who was released by the Packers on Monday, and waiving former first-round pick Jason Allen, who was just recently replaced by Sean Smith in the starting lineup.

Harris hasn't played a snap since tearing three ligaments in his knee last November. At the age of 35, Harris is clearly on the tail end of his career, but could still be serviceable in a mentoring role for Miami's young corner tandem. Harris has picked off 21 passes in 12 seasons, and was just recently selected to the Pro Bowl in 2007 and 2008, so maybe he still has something left in the tank if he can just get back to 100%.

As for Jason Allen, this is a tough, abrupt way to end what has been his best year by far as a pro. He will now offically go down as a bust for his time spent in Miami, but you have to admire the way he battled back this season by making some key plays in some big wins early on. At the end of the day, though, he's just not starting material and it's obvious Sean Smith is going to concede far less completions even if he doesn't have the same knack for picking off passes.

Moving on to the much bigger story of the day, Chad Pennington will get the start at quarterback against the Titans.

"They both have strengths, and certainly weaknesses," Tony Sparano said. "At this particular time, my decision is Chad Pennington's strengths might be suited a little bit more for where we need to be."

 Personally, I am very indifferent about this switch. On one hand, it's almost a guarantee that Pennington will make far fewer mistakes and will likely do enough to keep the Dolphins in most games. On the other hand, though, this offense's ceiling is much higher with a prototypical quarterback like Chad Henne under center.

Not to mention the fact that this likely means the Dolphins are now back on the lookout for their long-term solution at the game's most important position. Sparano did mention that this wasn't "an indictment on (Henne's) future," but if he truly believed he was still capable of becoming a franchise quarterback it doesn't make much sense to pull him mid-season.

But if Sparano believes Pennington gives this team the best chance to make a second-half run and earn a playoff spot, how can you really argue with this decision? The future is important when you have a young team like the Dolphins do, but when your good enough to win now, that has to be your primary goal.

Check back later tonight, as we evaluate Pennington's impact on the offense.

The Dolphins are 4-4. Nothing more, nothing less. Bill Parcells once said, "You are who your record says you are." That rings especially true with these Dolphins. Golden opportunities after golden opportunities have presented themselves to this football team over the past two years, and the Dolphins simply haven't had what it takes to make the jump from average to good.

Back in 2008, the Dolphins lacked in the talent department, but benefited from mistake free football and a weak schedule. As fans, we were content with the division title and the first-round playoff exit because we knew that the Dolphins had maxed out their potential.

Not taking anything away from that magical season, it will probably stand in my mind as the most memberable year I have ever experienced as a Miami Dolphin fan until the day this franchise ends it's long Super Bowl drought. But the bottom line was, unless you were delusional, we all knew that there were still pieces that needed to be added for this team to emerge as a true title contender.

Last year, the Dolphins had a couple opportunities to take that next step a little bit ahead of schedule. In Week 2, the Dolphins had the golden standard for an elite football team, the Indianapolis Colts, right where they wanted them with a seven point lead in the fourth quarter. When it came time for them to rise up and defeat one of the best team's in football on a national stage, though, they faltered in the fourth quarter and quietly returned to their average status.

Five weeks later, the Dolphins had the eventual Super Bowl champion Saints down by 21 in the first-half before laying down for a second-half massacre in a game that ultimately resulted in a 12 point loss.

Two opportunities right down the drain, but we all knew that 2009 would be a small step backwards that would hopefully lead to some giant steps in the right direction in the future. Chad Henne was only in his first-year as the starter after all, and he lacked a true go-to threat that would complete the offense.

So the Dolphins went out and traded for Brandon Marshall, arguably one of the top five receivers in football with plenty of good years ahead of him. They also beefed up the defense by bringing in a genius defensive coordinator in Mike Nolan and signing a huge upgrade at inside linebacker in Karlos Dansby.

On paper this Dolphins team was ready to take that next step forward and contend for a division title and eventually a Super Bowl. Things never work out like they are supposed to on paper, though, do they?

In my mind this Dolphins team has had four opportunities to prove to us and the world that they belong in the elite discussion. Not to downplay their wins at Minnesota and Green Bay, both were crucial and without them we are probably gearing up for the NFL Draft already. But the Vikings clearly aren't the same team they were a year ago, and the Packers were injury depleted. Not to mention, games against NFC opponents just don't have the same meaning in the big picture.

Sitting at 2-0, the Dolphins had a gift of an opportunity to put a chokehold on the AFC East with back-to-back home, prime-time games against their two biggest division competitors. The defense opened up the flood gates against the Jets and the special-teams had a meltdown of epic porportions against the Patriots.

Although, the division title is still attainable, many fans started turning their attention towards the wildcard. After looking at the schedule during the bye week, two big test with huge wildcard implications stood out. I'm obviously referring to the Steelers and Ravens games. Before both of those key conference showdowns, all I heard the players talk about was how they were ready to assert themselves as one of the league's best teams.

Yes, they got hosed against the Steelers on Big Ben's controversial fumble, but anyone with common sense knows the Dolphins beat themselves by settling for five field goals. Then, in Sunday's game against the Ravens, the Dolphins were thoroughly beat in just about every aspect of the game. The defense looked uninspired, missing a reported nine tackles on the afternoon, and quite frankly I haven't been so frustrated watching this offense in a long time.

You can't sit here and tell me the Dolphins are still a legitament contender after dropping all four of those contest. A good team would have found a way to win at least one of those games, if not two considering three were at home.

Why haven't we seen the type of improvement we were hoping for you might ask? First off, I do believe this team is better. Last year's squad would have likely been buried by that brutal first-half schedule. But while the Dolphins have made significant strides in some areas, their identity on offense- really what everyone was banking on as a given entering the season- the running game, has completely fallen off.

I have placed the blame on the front office for replacing all three interior offensive line starters numerous times this season, but even when the running game starts to show some signs of life, like this past Sunday's opening drive for example, Dan Henning finds a way to completely abandon it. I haven't been AS critical of Dan Henning of some fans, but you have to wonder when enough is enough. That's a topic for another day, though.

Yes, these Dolphins have given us no reason to believe they will be anything more than average this season, but there's still plenty of football left to be played. They have nobody to blame but themselves for their current state, stuck in the middle of the pack with almost zero margin for error. But, hey, at least there is still hope.

We've seen this football team go on some clutch late season runs over the past two years, and they are certainly capable of doing just that with their second-half schedule. Grant it, that second-half looked considerably softer at the beginning of the season, but I only see two games (on the road against the Jets and Pats) in which they should be the underdogs.

What exactly will it take? Many are saying the Dolphins need to go at least 6-2 over the final eight games. That may be enough qualify for a wildcard spot, but personally, I think they can only afford to lose one more game just to be safe. I just don't see them winning too many tie breakers with their current conference record and with the teams they have lost to.

7-1 doesn't look very likely but it can be done. Obvioulsy, I'm going to hold out hope that it can happen, but still though, this team hasn't given outsiders any reason to believe they have what it takes to make that kind of run, or be anything more than a one and done in the playoffs if they somehow pull it off.

Hopefully, Brandon Marshall's playoff guarantee that he made earlier today will inspire this team to do great things, because right now they are simply average. Nothing more, nothing less. 500.