The Harrington Family Foundation

"Joey Blue Skies is back!'' Joey Harrington announced, and the interview room broke up with laughter. No one was laughing at Harrington. Everyone laughs for him, because what others among the traditionally tight-lipped quarterbacks of the National Football League would ever speak so flippantly of themselves?

Joey Blue Skies wore a suit and tie. He was as immaculate as the turnnoverless game he just played, but the grin was his biggest accessory after the Dolphins brutalized the New England Patriots 21-0.

Joey mentioned, too, the Dolphins ''probably would have to win the rest of their games'' to make the playoffs, and even then the postseason would be a long shot. ``But until that guy in the computer lab says it is mathematically impossible . . . to make the playoffs, I'm going to still fight for it.''

Hold the smart retorts. Miami has won five of the past six games Harrington has started, and Sunday took him to 5-4 for the year, his first time over the hump this deep in any NFL season, and the world was bright again for Joey Blue Skies.

He wasn't talking about what he had done, although he had clearly done a great deal. He superbly managed his offense -- yes, it really seemed to be an offense Sunday, especially since the Dolphins easily could have scored another touchdown from the Patriots' 5 with a first down and only 1:09 to play. Instead, with class, Harrington twice took a knee and let the clock run out.

FUTURE QUEST

Overall, only the next three games will determine whether Sunday at Dolphins Stadium was remarkable new reality, or just another manifestation of this club's erratic personality. Those games will be played, in order, at Buffalo, then against the Jets here, then at Indianapolis. If Sunday's Joey Blue Skies stands up for three more weeks, the Nick Saban brain trust will have some heavy pondering to do.

Does Harrington keep the job next season? Or do the Dolphins keep trying to rehabilitate Daunte Culpepper back into their $10 million investment in him so far? Or, third, do they reach out in the next draft for some young gun who would have a lot to learn in the best case?

Believe only this: Neither Harrington nor Saban will be giving it a lot of thought until the first of January, which is the day after they finish up in Indy.

None of this should be interpreted as giving Harrington all the props for polishing off the Patriots, or him trying to seize credit. He couldn't wait to start passing off praise to Marty Booker, whom he hit for 32 yards and a touchdown, again for 26 yards on the way to the last touchdown.

But sometimes, as Saban pointed out, ''the best plays you make are the ones you don't.'' Harrington refused to try to force the ball into impossible openings. He has a big arm that has sometimes been too wild an arm. He knows better than anyone that he has to stay out of trouble to keep opponents in trouble.

When Culpepper was stumbling around in a season's start he never should have been permitted to endure, he couldn't move his feet or the ball fast enough.

Harrington moves so fast, some downfield pass patterns don't get time to develop. So what to do? Try to lighten up on the deep stuff and settle for short? Or fire it way out there and let the devil take the hindmost?

''We are working on that, incrementally,'' Saban said a couple of weeks ago. That sounds like they are still trying to figure it all out.

Meanwhile, Joey Blue Skies hasn't the luxury of time to think things over back there in what is sometimes a pocket and sometimes is not. He has to be a quick draw to get the ball off before people overrun his offensive line. Not that he would ever permit an unkind word about them.

LOVE IS IN THE AIR

''I trust them with my life,'' he said, and that is often more truth than hyperbole. ''They are an incredible group of guys.'' He means Damion McIntosh, Kendyl Jacox, Rex Hadnot, L.J. Shelton and Vernon Carey, and he goes on, 'I emphasize `group' in that sentence because I know they've taken a bit of criticism the last couple of years, but there is no offensive line I would rather stand behind. They're tremendous players and a tremendous group of guys.''

He loves his defense just as much, and why wouldn't he, with this gang of maniacs? ''When you only have to score three points to win, that's phenomenal,'' he said.

That defense is a whole other story, one that Tom Brady and other Patriots will be deposing today. Brady passed for just 78 yards while Harrington was running up 190.

For all that he twinkles, Harrington is not yet a star. Or even close. He is a work in progress, barely 28 years old, spending his fifth year in the NFL and his first with a team worthy of the name.

Coming into the Patriots game, he had thrown 11 touchdown passes to 13 interceptions. Coming out, his ratio was 12-13.

Marino stuff, that's not. But Joey Blue Skies is gaining on everything he wants to be, for all the guys he wants to repay for making him the winner he finally is.

He will need everything he has to survive, let alone prosper, across the last three games. He has to keep playing at least as well as he did Sunday to bring the 6-7 Dolphins in as seasonlong winners. Two out of three would make them 8-8 at the finish. It wouldn't be good enough to suit Joey Blue Skies.