If there are magic numbers for the Dolphins defense, they are three and 20.

In each of the Dolphins' two wins, the defense allowed fewer than three pass plays longer than 20 yards. In each of the Dolphins' three losses, they have allowed at least three completions longer than 20 yards.

And they're coming off a 29-28 loss Sunday in which Houston strafed them for eight completions longer than 20 yards. That doesn't exactly mean peril in the near future because their next opponent is Baltimore, which hasn't had an NFL deep threat since Roger Carr chased down Bert Jones passes in the 1970s for the Colts. But down the road are meetings with Buffalo (Lee Evans averages 22.2 yards per catch against the Dolphins) and Denver (Jay Cutler is off to a hot start), and a rematch with the Jets and Brett Favre.

Also on schedule is Oakland, where the owner always wants his offense to throw deep and often gets what he wants.

After the Arizona game, the Dolphins secondary talked about making tackles if a play on the ball could not be made. They did that well enough against San Diego and New England that the Chargers' swings and screens wound up as defused as the Patriots' quick ins and outs to Wes Welker.

''I just think at the end of this we gave up too many big plays, obviously,'' Dolphins coach Tony Sparano said.

``We gave up eight plays I think over 20 yards in the pass game and a couple [of] runs over 15 yards. That's 10 plays there that are plus-20 or plus-15 yards. The issue is, like I said in the last couple [of] weeks, too, it's run-after-catch yards I think that are important. That team [Sunday] had a bunch of run-after-catch yards. I know the exact number of yards that they had and I think that it's way too many. If they make the catch and you put them on the ground, we could be looking at a completely different offensive day for them.''

Actually, the tackling problem mainly seemed confined to 6-3, 223-pound Miami High and University of Miami product Andre Johnson. When it was wide receiver Kevin Walter or tight end Owen Daniels applying the torch, they often weren't close enough to make the tackle. That speaks of problems in communication, the other shortcoming identified from the first two losses, or conception.

''We knew coming into this game, preparing for Houston is always a difficult task because you might see one thing one week and the next week you might see something totally different,'' Dolphins safety Renaldo Hill said.

``But we're football players and we have to adjust to things like that.''

Sparano defended the secondary by saying, ``It's not like there were mental errors. A couple [of] weeks ago in Arizona we had mental errors. It wasn't like that. We were in position pretty well. There were a couple of seam throws where maybe we didn't push far enough within the coverage and they got a little bit of free access in the middle of the field once or twice that way. But other than that, several of the throws were contested and they just made good plays.''

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