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FOXBORO - It's easy to forget, amid the Patriots' dominance of the AFC East over the past decade, that the Miami Dolphins are the defending division champions.

That is, it is until you look at this year's divisional records. The Dolphins, coming to Foxboro for today's game against the Patriots (1 p.m.; Ch. 4, 12) are 3-4, but 3-0 in divisional play.

"It's just been an emphasis since the day I walked in here that we try to do well in our division and the division games are most important," Miami coach Tony Sparano said via conference call on Wednesday. "I mean, they're all important of course, but the division games have a lot more importance.

"This is the emphasis, without a doubt," he said. "We need to do a better job winning the games that are not in our division, but certainly taking care of the division is a good thing."

The Patriots are leading the division at 5-2 entering the game, but already have a divisional loss and two in the conference. Tiebreakers are a very important part of the process, but as the Patriots learned last year when 11-5 was not good enough to get them into the playoffs - and the Dolphins may yet learn this year - it's important to win, regardless of opponent, and the tiebreakers are most likely going to take care of themselves. "I remember when I came into the league, nine (wins) was kind of the measuring stick," Sparano said. "You rarely saw a team with nine games, 10 games, that didn't make the playoffs, and now you get a team that wins 11 games and it doesn't make the playoffs, so I think there's no question it all starts within your division.

"The division games are critical as you get on in this thing," he added, "and to leave it up to the luck of the draw or any of those things is probably not the best thing to do, so you need to take care of your division first."

The Dolphins are in the midst of a rebuilding program engineered by former Patriots' coach Bill Parcells, who carries the title of executive vice president of football operations. Parcells has plenty of underlings between him and the on-field product, but it's clear that even under new ownership, the Dolphins carry his "stamp."

That could be problematic for a head coach looking to earn his own stripes and not be laboring under the shadow of a larger-than-life figure in the front office. But Sparano, who came with Parcells from the Dallas Cowboys, seems to be fine with the relationship.

"There's no question about it, Bill Parcells is a big part of what we do and has been a big part of philosophy here," Sparano said. "In other words, I've learned an awful lot from him. And being around him, big and physical is what I learned.

"That's the way this team was built," he said. "We felt strongly - and when I say we, I mean me, Bill and (General Manager) Jeff Ireland - that when we came in here, that was the direction we needed to head. There was never any wavering one way or the other because that's what we were used to. Big and physical is important. Doing it in the interiors, in the lines, and starting it there is very important. Our last couple drafts show that's something certainly we've made an emphasis doing."

The Dolphins' bad start coincided with a parallel to last year's Patriot team, the loss of a starting quarterback. Chad Pennington is gone for the season, and the unheralded Chad Henne is his replacement.

"I think one of the good things with Chad Henne is that he was able to watch and learn from Chad Pennington," Sparano said. "It also gave him time to get a good grasp of the entire offense. We had no hesitation when Henne came in to hold any of the playbook back or any of those things. He was very comfortable with all that we were doing.

"The other thing, and this is not to slight Chad Pennington at all, (Henne) can advance the ball down the field a little bit, too," he said. "One of the biggest issues in making this switch to Henne is identifying the things that he did well because we didn't have him in any of those games last year. We didn't have the luxury of getting him in the games. We won a lot of games in the fourth quarter last year."

With Henne showing poise at the helm and the gimmicky "Wildcat" offense still catching some foes by surprise, the Dolphins are showing signs that they may be ready to claw themselves out of the big hole they dug at the start of the season. And that may not be a pretty prospect for a Patriot team that has to play them twice over the next five Sundays. "What I've seen out of my team in practice is that this team, from the first day, has been a hard-working football team," Sparano said. "This team is different from last year's but they're a hard-working bunch of guys. They put their head down and they get after it pretty good in practice and understand that practice is critical to the way we will play in the game. I see us getting better out there, but whether or not we're turning the corner, time will tell.

"We've had some pretty good battles against some pretty good teams right now, and we'll face another one this week," he said. "I do believe this football team right now is better than last year's football team at that time."

MARK FARINELLA may be reached at 508-236-0315 or via e-mail at mfarinel@thesunchronicle.com. Read Farinella's blog, "Blogging Fearlessly," at thesunchronicle.com/farinella.