Posted by Mike Petraglia

With this being the final game before Thanksgiving, we can all be grateful for Joey Porter.

As reporters, he gives us the juice we need to make just another preview story more compelling.

As for players (like Denver’s Brandon Marshall below), he provides incentive to play at a high level and not be embarrassed by him on the field.

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As coaches, his mouth provides plenty of motivation to scheme for him and get a lead so that he doesn’t have the chance to run his mouth.

And as fans, Joey Porter is the rare commodity today in the pro sports world. He speaks from his heart and doesn’t care about the ramifications.

He did it again on Monday when he told reporters, “We don’t like them. They don’t like us. They let us know how they feel about us. Then they start punting over our heads - like, you want the whole 100-yard field? You don’t do that.”

Porter was also steamed that Laurence Maroney ran the ball four times in a row with a 28-7 lead with two minutes to go in a game last December. .

“I don’t forget things like that,” Porter said. “I hope our whole defense and our whole team doesn’t forget things like that.”

Well, the Pats will get another chance this Sunday to silence Joey Porter and the Fish that moved to Miami.

New England’s first shot didn’t go so well. On Sept. 21, Ronnie Brown ran for four TDs and threw another while Porter sacked the quarterback four times in a 38-13 Miami rout at Gillette Stadium.

Porter leads the NFL with 13.5 sacks and on Tuesday, some of the Patriots carefully replied. (Don’t get your hopes up for anyone going Brandon Marshall on us, Peasie…).

“When you have 12 and a half, 13 and a half sacks or whatever he’s got in 10 games, you can pretty much say what you want in this league and get away with it,” Patriots fullback Heath Evans responded on Tuesday. “Until we do something about him, he’s earned the right to say what he wants to say. They’re 1-0 against us this year. Some of those details, I warm up in my same spot every week.”

Matt Light and the offensive line will have to do a better job containing Porter and the rest of the Miami defense this week than in Week 3 in Foxboro, when the Dolphins sacked the combination of Cassel and rookie Kevin O’Connell five times.

“He’s playing some of his best ball,” Light said. “He’s obviously the leader in sacks. He’s one of those guys you just have to get a hat on. You can’t give anything to him. He takes everything he gets. He’s playing well.”

“He’s the same player we’ve seen,” added Patriots coach Bill Belichick. “I think it certainly helps them defensively [that] their turnovers, their sacks, some of their big plays on defensive, have come as usual, when the offense is in long-yardage situations or they’re ahead and [the offense] has to throw, they’re taking more chances, they’re a little more exposed.”

No one, and I mean no one, speaks between the lines better than Belichick. Porter does a great job when the offense he’s facing is in long-yardage situations. What he DIDN’T say was that if you get the lead, you have a chance to contain him. If you remember September, which of course the Pats do, they didn’t spend much time in the game, let alone with the lead.

All trash talk aside, Sunday’s game is a crucial one in a tight AFC East race. Miami and New England enter with 6-4 records, one game behind the first-place New York Jets.

“There’s not much room here,” Patriots left tackle Matt Light said. “Where we’re at right now, everybody understands we have to play better week in, week out. And it starts with this week. This is as big as it gets.”

Evans did show some respect for Porter, who Evans said should get much of the credit for the inspired play of their defense.

“I think he’s that fired up every week,” Evans said. “He’s a competitor. I admire a guy like that on the field. He’s a fiery guy. He inspires that defense. He’s made a buttload of plays for them this year.”

Meanwhile, Belichick and his defensive coordinator Dean Pees have been fielding questions about containing the “Wildcat” formation that burned the Patriots for 461 total yards in September and had no answers for Brown, who rushed for 113 yards and four touchdowns on 17 carries while throwing for another score.

“It’s a formation they run maybe five to eight times a game,” Belichick said Tuesday. “They jump into it, jump out of it. They change it up every week, either add a couple new plays or add a couple of new looks off of it - however they do it. And in the meantime they move around ten other things too.”

The Patriots offensive line has cleaned up their play significantly over the last four weeks, allowing just four sacks in the past three games. The solid line play has helped Cassel become more confident in the pocket, throwing for a career-best 400 yards and three touchdowns in 34-31 overtime loss to the New York Jets on Nov. 13.