Miami's first round pick, Ted Ginn, was the first Dolphin to touch the ball Saturday night and he brought some sizzle with a 25-yard return.
After that, a group of rookies lauded by veterans the past two weeks got a knuckle sandwich-flavored taste of the NFL until Jacksonville went to the basement of its roster in the second half.
That's when fullback Reagan Mauia helped spring Jesse Chatman on his third-quarter 74-yard touchdown run.
That's also when quarterback John Beck came in to lead an 11-play, 69-yard touchdown drive that owed more to running back Patrick Cobbs. Cobbs not only had the 3-yard touchdown run as well as the two-point conversion, but on the key play of the drive, scooped up a Beck fumble and turned a potential turnover into a 12-yard gain to the Jaguars 21.
Beck, who went 3 for 5 for 23 yards on the drive, also got lucky when Jacksonville's Brett Goode dropped a sure interception. Also, Beck underthrew an open Courtney Anderson at the goal line.
Punter Brandon Fields had the best night of any Dolphins rookie. A pair of punts over 50 yards helped Fields average 43.0 yards per punt on his seven punts. He dropped one inside the 10 and another two inside the 20.
Unsurprisingly, the welcome to the NFL that center Samson Satele and left guard Drew Mormino got from Jacksonville's defensive line qualified as brutally rude and crude.
To be fair, left tackle Vernon Carey and right guard Rex Hadnot, both fourth-year veterans, had their problems, too. Julius Wilson replaced Carey after Carey went down with a knee injury.
Satele said he needs to make his line calls faster.
''Sometimes, I take longer than I'm supposed to and the clock is clicking down and we've got to rush things,'' he said.
On the opening kickoff, Ginn showed the kind of speed that enticed the Dolphins to take him No. 9 overall. He took the kickoff a the goal line, near the left sideline.
Once things got stopped up on the left, Ginn dipped outside right, a move that works for speed returners in college, but in the NFL, usually gets them little more than a lesson on how much faster the play-for-pay game is. After that, Ginn couldn't find room to build any speed on his kickoff returns and both Jacksonville punts went into the Dolphins end zone.
On offense, Ginn often lined up outside to the left, sometimes with Az-Zahir Hakim as the slot receiver.
It was out of that formation that on third-and-15 from the Jacksonville 37 he easily beat single coverage and was so wide open, he likely would have scored. Quarterback Trent Green didn't see Ginn deep and underthrew David Martin short on the same side.
''First game, he saw something he wanted to go to,'' Ginn said. ``Trent's going to see whoever's open and get you the ball. You've just got to keep playing the game and he'll spread it out.''
Green had taken a shot to Ginn deep down the left sideline in the first quarter, but overthrew him. Ginn did have one catch on a short route that he turned into a 9-yard gain before he was pushed out of bounds.
Seventh-round pick linebacker Abraham Wright entered the game in the first quarter and was double teamed on passing downs, sometimes with two linemen instead of just a back and a lineman.
In the fourth quarter, Wright fought off a double team to get a sack.
Dolphins-Jaguars postgame audio