Of the many perceptions dogging the Dolphins after Sunday's loss to a battered Bills team, the one Dolphins coach Tony Sparano argued Monday isn't reality concerned the playoff race.

``We are a 5-6 football team that has our next five opponents coming in here that all have the same thing at stake that we do,'' Sparano said. ``You people [reporters] might have wrote us out of this thing, but I didn't. There's a 5-6 team that we have to play down the road [Tennessee] that's won five in a row. Because they won five in a row, they're in the conversation, and because we lost against the Buffalo Bills we're out of it? I'm not buying that.''

But neither Sparano nor the players had many answers for what the Dolphins sold Sunday, including a flat performance against a downtrodden team, and, again, the defense allowing a physically dominating Dolphins drive to be answered with a scoring drive.

Sunday's loss by Jacksonville, consecutive losses by Pittsburgh and Denver's four-week bungee jump that ended Thanksgiving leave the Dolphins still mathematically in the playoff race. They lost a chance to keep pace with or, pending Monday's result, gain on AFC East-leading New England.

As he did in the postgame media session, Sparano tried to take blame for the Dolphins getting the blahs in the middle of the game.

``We didn't get them prepared,'' he repeated. ``I'm not proud of standing up here saying that. Our fans deserve better -- this organization deserves better than that. We're going to make it better. I don't know the mood of the players right now, I haven't seen them. I am sure that, if I know them, they will be pretty quiet, because as I have told them, these things are not acceptable. It should hurt a little bit; if it doesn't, something is wrong.''

Several players agreed with Dolphins wide receiver Greg Camarillo, who said, ``It's a good leader of Tony to say it's his fault, but it's not. That's something the players have to do.''

Nobody specifically mentioned the Ricky Williams pass out of the Wildcat formation that ended the Dolphins' opening drive with an end zone interception instead of a touchdown. There was the belief, however, that had the Dolphins grabbed an early lead, they might have gotten an early knockout instead of finding themselves in a 15-round fight.

``[It's the] type of situation where if you jump out to a quick lead, they might back away because they're a losing team,'' Camarillo said. ``If you give them hope, they're going to play as hard, if not harder than any other team. That's what happened.''

Linebacker Reggie Torbor said, ``Those guys came out and played. They're not just going to lay down and give you a win. I do believe we helped their confidence early on. If we had gone in and played the way we should have, we could've changed the outcome of the game. You let a team like that hang around, confidence gets rolling at home, the crowd gets into it and here we are.''

Then again, when the Dolphins appeared to claim alpha dog status Sunday with a 9:07 touchdown drive to start the second half, the Bills didn't wilt. Instead, Buffalo did what Indianapolis, New England and New Orleans did in response to long touchdown drives that seemingly monopolized momentum: answer with a touchdown drive of its own.

Sparano said he couldn't find a common thread in those four examples. Actually, there was one common thread a disappointing Miami loss.

NOTES

• Sparano said Nate Garner didn't start at left guard over Justin Smiley because of Smiley's shoulder injury Sunday, but rather because of Garner's play. Smiley, arguably the Dolphins' best offensive lineman early in the season, eventually played 39 plays at left guard as Garner took Donald Thomas' place at right guard on those plays.

• Ricky Williams ended with 27 carries Sunday. Sparano wants him at 22 to 25 carries. Still, he insisted that wasn't a factor in the Dolphins getting away from the running game after the Bills tied it at 14 in the fourth quarter.

``I think a large part of it has to do with protection,'' Sparano said.