In this Sunday's home opening game against the Raiders the Dolphins will pay homage to the 1972 team in honor of the 40 year anniversary of their still unmatched undefeated season. Fans attending the game will receive a throwback hat commemorating the event, but as big of an honor as attending this event is, there are other things us fans expect to see this Sunday from what is the first real test of where this team stands in term of of competitiveness in the league this year.

The Raiders are traveling 3000+ miles, changing time zones and missing key components in their offense so loosing is definitely not an option for them, not only do they have the better match up going into the game but starting the season at 0-2 heading into the Jets game next week is just not an option.

Here are some of the things I look forward to seeing this game: first of all I expect to see Reggie Bush carrying the load off the back field with both rushing and receiving yards, I'm also hoping Miller can step up and fill the void left by Thomas who has been ruled out for the game (he's a third round pick and thus I'm expecting him to perform at a high level, otherwise, Ireland opposers will have some more ammunition to attack his character going forward). 

I also expect to see more mobility from Tannehill, after throwing 3 INTs in last weeks game against the Texans, I would think adjustments have been made; introducing a 5-7 step drop would be helpful in terms of buying him time, as it was that short 3 step drop that allowed the Texans to get to him several times last game.

The offensive line also needs to step up their protection, I am not interested in playing the blame game, tipped passes are both the QBs and o-lines fault, it's not like the o-line doesn't realize they have a rookie under center, he might make some mistakes but we need to be more aggressive in coverage when he does, we can't allow all tipped passes, regardless of culpability to all go the other way.

I'm also looking forward to Brian Hartline being put more to use during the game, he came into play several times late into the last game and seemed to be pretty effective despite having had missed most of the offseason's mini camps and training camp. If he's to be our # 1 WR going forward then we need to start exploring and building that bond between him and the QB.

On the defensive side of the ball I expect to see more of what I saw last week, we were very effective stoppingt he run, which will be important considering most of the Raiders offense will likely come from McFadden since the team has injuries at the WR position. The secondary needs to remain tight however, we need them to step up their coverages little bit more, something that should be considerably easier to do this week.

Finally, I expect to see more stamina from the team as a whole, we can't go into the 4th quarter with the tank running close to empty, the weather conditions in South Florida should make it so that we can outlast every other team so I hope conditioning played an important role during practice this week; I mean we all know how long a football game is, and I expect to see the same level of play from start to finish.

Game score prediction: Dolphins 24 - Raiders 10