DAVIE, Fla. -- Joey Porter has never been shy about speaking his mind.
The outspoken veteran has called opposing players "soft," was fined for things he said to Cleveland's Kellen Winslow during a game and even accused referees once of cheating. He created a buzz after this season's opener, when the Dolphins had him on the sideline during Washington's winning drive in overtime.
On Wednesday, the Miami linebacker was at it again.
The Dolphins are 0-3 and in desperate need of a victory, so he guaranteed one will come this weekend when Miami hosts the Oakland Raiders.
"Write it how you want to write it," Porter said. "We will win on Sunday."
The "we will win" promise is a tactic the often-outspoken Porter used at times during his eight seasons as a lightning rod in Pittsburgh. For whatever reason, the Steelers usually responded.
Miami can only hope it works again, or the Dolphins will be 0-4 for the second time in four seasons.
"We don't feel like we're an 0-3 team," Porter said. "We've played better. We haven't played to where we need to be but we know what we have on this team. We lost some games where things just fell apart and on defense we're doing things different from what we planned on doing. We've kind of adapted to them instead of letting them adapt to us."
Porter's words came after practice and in a fairly benign way; he was seated at his locker, reporters around him in a semicircle, some of them straining to hear his soft-spoken tone.
Dolphins coach Cam Cameron wasn't ranting, either, when he said - albeit in a much different way - that he's also anxious for better results.
"We get paid to win and we understand that," Cameron said. "However, it doesn't always happen the way we all want it to. You have to know what you believe in... There's a lot of good things. There's a lot of good players here that can continue to improve."
In Porter's eyes, so can Miami's schemes.
He said the three losses have come partly because the Dolphins have not played to their strength on defense.
"The strength of our defense is going out there and letting us fly around, blitzing, getting after the quarterback, putting pressure on the quarterback," Porter said. "Let's not sit back there and let the quarterback have four or five seconds to dissect our defense. Let's let him have two seconds and hopefully we can make him make a bad decision."
The opposing quarterback Porter would like to rattle this week could be Dolphins castoff Daunte Culpepper, whose presence will add another level of intrigue to the matchup.
The Raiders haven't said who will start, but Josh McCown didn't practice Wednesday because of an injured foot. That suggests Culpepper, who played in four games with the Dolphins last season before being shut down because of ongoing problems with his surgically rebuilt knee. He was released this offseason after Miami acquired Trent Green from Kansas City.
Regardless of who starts, Porter said the Dolphins will be better.
"We dropped some games that we weren't supposed to lose," Porter said. "But it happens. What do we do from now? We start off and get our first victory at home this Sunday against Oakland."
Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved
