Dolphins find a pulse, hammer the Titans 38-10

You knew it wouldn’t take much of a spark for the Dolphins to have a little more fire in their first game out from under deposed head coach Joe Philbin. They showed up in Tennessee on Sunday looking like a towering inferno, whipping the Titans 38-10 in Dan Campbell’s first game as the interim head coach.

Both sides of the ball played with a lot more urgency than we’re used to seeing from the Dolphins. They scored a first quarter touchdown on an end around to Jarvis Landry before adding another 13 points to take a 17-3 lead at the half.

Where they really made a statement was on defense. The Dolphins forced Marcus Mariota to fumble twice in the second quarter, before picking him off twice in the second half. Oliver Vernon put an especially brutal hit on Mariota in the first half of the game. The rookie quarterback came back, somehow, but the Dolphins defense had his number all day. Eventually, Zach Mettenberger replaced Mariota.

The defense finished with six sacks, five more sacks than they had through their first four games of the season. Those 38 points were also a season high for the Dolphins. In fact, that more than doubled their offensive output over the last two games.

The biggest difference for the Dolphins was seeing life on the sidelines. Dan Campbell moves! He talks to his assistants! To the players! Not that Philbin didn’t do those things, it was just hard to notice between the distant stares and deer-in-the-headlights act we were used to seeing.

It’s not unusual for interim coaches to give their teams a bump in their first game out of the gate. Interim coaches are 3-4 in their first games after taking over since 2010. The Dolphins went 2-1 with Todd Bowles as their interim in 2011, after firing Tony Sparano (who was 3-8 as the Raiders interim last season).

Tennessee was a favorable matchup for Campbell and the Dolphins. It gets a little tougher next week when they host the Houston Texans, but the real test for the new guy in Miami comes in two weeks, when they travel to Foxborough to face the Patriots. If the Campbell effect carries over into that game and the Dolphins pull off the unthinkable -- hey, it could happen -- he’d put himself in a good place to get the “interim” dropped from his title when the season ends.