Take your pick where to place some of the blame. Go ahead. Choose whatever play -- or whatever person -- contributed to the Dolphins' disheartening meltdown that resulted in a 21-point lead dissolving into a 12-point loss Sunday against the Saints.

Heck, everyone is doing it.

``I was upset at the halftime deal more than anything else,'' coach Tony Sparano said about his own sleepless night of second-guessing. That's the blunder Miami's coach is swallowing on his own -- the ill-fated timeout approved by Sparano that would allow New Orleans to reset its offense and score a momentum-shifting touchdown as the first half came to an end.

``I want my players to do this, so I need to do it myself,'' said Sparano, opening his day-after news conference with an unprompted acceptance of blame. ``I have to take ownership of the situation that happened at the end of the half yesterday.

``I should have lived with what was out on the field in that situation. That was a poor decision on my part.''

That's fine. Classy and honorable. But as anyone who watched Sunday's loss knows, the Dolphins managed to lose their lead in the same manner in which they gained it: as a team. No doubt, there was plenty of blame to go around.

For that reason, linebacker Joey Porter wasn't surprised by Sparano's own accountability. On a day like this, it only made sense for everyone to do the same.

``He owned up to what he felt he had to own up to,'' Porter said Monday. ``We all have to own up to our mistakes.''

Wide receiver Ted Ginn Jr. will wait to potentially do the same. After declining to speak to reporters after Sunday's game, Ginn told a team spokesman Monday he preferred to wait until Wednesday to address his performance.

As the team analyzes what went wrong, it will do so for the sole purpose of improving. Did the dropped passes by a number of wide receivers -- not just Ginn -- lead to this loss? Was it the missed tackles by a number of defensive players -- not just safety Gibril Wilson -- that allowed the Saints to come back? Sparano will look at all of it.

MISSED TACKLES

``I'm concerned about anybody missing tackles,'' Sparano said. ``Our job is to get them on the ground when you're on that side of the ball. Now let me make you understand something -- we had a few missed tackles [Sunday], not just Gibril.''

For what it's worth, Sparano said he believes it wasn't until the end of the third quarter -- not even on any specific offensive play -- when he felt Miami beginning to lose its grip on the game.

He referenced a Saints drive that had four consecutive runs for a total of 59 yards.

``Nobody really does that against us,'' Sparano said. ``I thought that that was a little shift, and then some of that bled over into the fourth quarter.''

Surely, no reasonable person is going to blame Miami's defense, especially the run defense, for this loss, especially for how solid the unit played before that point. But just like everything else, even the defense deserves its share of the blame.

And now that most everyone has accepted it, the Dolphins can soon do the only thing left: They'll move on, playing the Jets on Sunday.

BRUISED EGOS

``Right now, if I know my team, their egos are a little bit bruised right now because I think that's a game of coulda, shoulda, woulda's,'' Sparano said. ``We were in control several times and we let it get away. But this group has been pretty good at putting some of these things behind them and moving on.

``We have 10 games left, another division game coming up, and we're just going to work our tail off to get better. All of us.''