"Miami Dolphins GM Jeff Ireland, who had insisted there was "no fire" to put out in regard to Joey Porter a month ago at the Senior Bowl, had a different approach to questions about the controversial sack artist here on Thursday.

How much, the national media wanted to know, did Porter's coast-to-coast media tour during Super Bowl week have to do with the (botched) decision to release him on Feb. 12?

"It had nothing on the bearing of why we released Joey, or the intent was to release Joey that day," Ireland said. "None of the talk off the field had anything to do with why we attemped to release him. It's all basically performance on the field is why we attempted to release him."

Notice he said "basically." Porter did lead the team with nine sacks last year.

Maybe this was one of those "football decisions" in the mode of the Matt Roth release.

Then again, Roth seems more productive at this point in his career than Porter, who is tailing off and had the ailing right knee last year.

Considering there's still another eight days until the new league year begins — and Porter can officially be released under NFL salary-cap guidelines — is there a chance the Dolphins could change their minds?"