Fins/Bills: Pregame notes

-The Dolphins have a huge game against Buffalo today. They need to win this AFC East game to stay in line to play the Jets for the division title at the end of the month. As it stands, the Dolphins control their destiny in the division race. Let's keep it that way.

-A part of winning today will be getting back to playing Dolphins football. The Dolphins are still doing well in the turnover department, their 10 tied for the fewest through 12 games in league history, but penalties have become an issue. As Dan Henning pointed out, Miami has had as many penalties in the last two weeks as the rest of the season combined.

-Justin Smiley is done for the season, a terrible loss of our best lineman, a guy playing pro bowl caliber football. However, the Dolphins need to move on and keep finding a way.

The immediate solution figures to be that Ike will stay at right guard and Andy Alleman will become an every down player on the left side, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't hoping to finally see Shawn Murphy getting some playing time. Probably wishful thinking...

A guy who has insiders talking is Al Johnson, the recent signee who started 31 games for Sparano in Dallas and the coach calls "Brilliant." Johnson did practice all day Wednesday with the first group, but not at guard. He spent all day all day at center, indicating that the coaching staff might be acting on something that I noticed weeks ago, that Samson Satele is not strong enough at the point of attack to be our long term solution at center.

I would be surprised if Johnson played any center today, as it is hard to change that position over the course of the game due to the center-quarterback exchange. I believe, rather, that the idea of him practicing was to give the undersized and beat up Samson Satele a much needed extra day off and to immerse Johnson in the system and prepare him for possible action in the future, especially if he starts outperforming Satele on the practice field. It might be a stretch, but I could imagine Johnson starting at center in our final few games with the very quick Satele moving to guard. Time, and performance in practice, will tell.

Meanwhile, taking a peek ahead to next year, Satele needs to seriously beef up if he wants a place on this team. He is a talented guy, but Sparano is not going to put up with a weakling at one of the most important positions on offense. As for Johnson, he seems like a great fit from everything I hear about him, but I've got to wonder why, if he is so great, was he a free agent? It will be exciting to see how that one turns out.

-Weird news. Not only is Dan Carpenter leading all AFC kickers in Pro Bowl balloting, but he was also named AFC Special Teams Player of the Month for November. He has had a nice streak of field goals, but doesn't anybody consider that the Dolphins don't try any long kicks and Carpenter almost never reaches the end zone on kickoffs? I'll credit him for some solid directional kicking of late, but the only award I would give him is chip shot artist of the year.

-Even weirder news. Why was Jason Allen out of the game last week after being listed as probable? Foul play involved? Word out of Davie is that the coaching staff thinks that Joey Thomas might be better than Allen, and that Allen could've gone but the Dolphins thought they might've had a better player active in Thomas. Apparently his two early pass interferences made them think better of their decision: Thomas is inactive today. Something's a little fishy here (excuse the inexcusably awful pun)...