Give Chad Henne a break. Give him time. Better yet, give him a receiver.

Give this Dolphins team one wide receiver -- just one -- who is so good that opposing defensive coordinators lose sleep and cornerbacks wake up sweating.

Give Miami one premier wideout -- just one -- capable of delivering quick-strike fireworks and turning games inside out.

Find the next Randy Moss, Andre Johnson, Larry Fitzgerald or some reasonable facsimile and you know what you've got then, Miami?

Another Super Bowl.

I don't mean hosting one. I mean winning one.

That's how close this franchise is getting to being that good.

It might seem ludicrous to say as this season pauses mid-schedule dragging a 3-5 record, and yet it is true.

For the latest reminder look to the latest loss, Sunday in New England, where Moss -- the Patriots having him and the Dolphins having nothing close -- was the difference. It wasn't Tom Brady. It was Brady having the one elite receiver that allows him to be elite.

BIG SCORING THREATS

This is turning into a big-play NFL, with 10 quarterbacks on pace to surpass 4,000 yards and plays of 50-plus yards on record pace. But the Dolphins have become an anachronism, and the perfect illustration came in Sunday's third quarter, when the Miami slow-marched 66 yards in 16 plays in a 10-minute scoring drive that featured three different players taking snaps and even elements of an option offense -- only to then watch the Patriots erase all that arduous work with one 71-yard strike to Moss. Boom.

The potential for Miami to hit what coach Tony Sparano calls ``chunk yards'' is virtually non-existent. The biggest playmaker on offense probably is 32-year-old running back Ricky Williams -- a remarkable compliment to Williams, but, for the team, not good. The popgun nature of the passing game has slightly improved with the stronger-armed Henne, but not much. Not enough.

Miami is the only NFL team averaging less than 10 yards a completion. Even among the wide receivers (ostensibly the deep threats), the average is barely over the Mendoza line at 10.05. The four wide receivers -- Davone Bess, Greg Camarillo, Ted Ginn and Brian Hartline -- have combined for two touchdown catches at midseason. That's one afternoon's work for many of the league's premier receivers. That's less touchdowns all year than drops in one typical half for this quartet.

You know why Ronnie Brown's rushing yards have declined sharply the past three games? Simple. Opposing defense are crowding up to stop the run because they know that Bess/Camarillo/Ginn/Hartline, individually or as a group, are nothing to be afraid of. Nothing, in a football sense, to respect.

``Teams are kind of trying to make us pass,'' Brown said Monday.

Daring the Dolphins to pass is more like it. Because opponents know Miami's Un-Fab Four can't get open deep to take advantage of Henne's strong arm.

I'm starting to see grumbling in e-mails and hear it on sports-talk radio -- Dolfans pointing to Henne's mediocre passer rating in fives games as a starter (77.8) and wondering if he's the long-term future.

But if anything about this team is clear at midseason it is that Henne cannot be fairly or fully judged with the insufficient targets at his disposal. I can't say that enough.

Sparano keeps covering publicly for his wide receivers. Like he has a choice?

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