EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – So the trend continues in this intense AFC East rivalry.

The Miami Dolphins avenged their overtime loss to the New York Jets with a convincing 30-9 road win today at MetLife Stadium, splitting the season series with the Jets and winning their third straight in the process to improve to 4-3. This marks the ithird straight season that neither team was able to complete the sweep and Miami knows it came within a missed field goal on September 23rd from doing so.

It was only appropriate that defense and special teams proved to be the difference, with the Dolphins pitching a shutout in the first half and holding New York to just one late touchdown. They pulled off the victory despite losing starting quarterback Ryan Tannehill to a leg injury in the first quarter.

“I told our team it was a team victory in every regard,” Dolphins Head Coach Joe Philbin said. “All three phases contributed to the win and I thought our guys came out ready to play after the bye week. We got off to a fast start and there were a lot of positives out there.”

Backup quarterback Matt Moore didn’t miss a beat, completing 11-of-19 passes for 131 yards and a touchdown and engineering another touchdown drive off of a turnover. He was efficient and showed little rust in the arm as he completed passes of 37 yards to Marlon Moore and 30 yards to Jabar Gaffney in addition to his 4-yard strike to tight end Anthony Fasano for the final touchdown.

“It was different at first because I kind of had to get a couple of plays under my belt,” said Moore, who was the team’s Most Valuable Player last season after going 6-3 down the stretch. “Once we got in the swing of things and put some drives together here and there I felt more comfortable. I felt good and a lot of guys on the offense made plays out there today. The two deep balls to Marlon Moore and Jabar Gaffney helped my confidence and that was a great catch by Marlon.”

Kicker Dan Carpenter, who missed two kicks in the first meeting, was a perfect 3-for-3 in this game and punter Brandon Fields had another dominant performance in his favorite place to play next to Sun Life Stadium. Defensively, safety Jimmy Wilson, cornerback Nolan Carroll, safety Chris Clemons and the entire front seven was active all day.

Wilson got things going early with a sack of Jets quarterback Matt Sanchez on a third-down play as he came in clean off the edge on a blitz, and then on the very next play he burst through the line and blocked Robert Malone’s punt. Rookie defensive end Olivier Vernon recovered the bouncing the ball in the end zone for the touchdown that gave Miami a 10-0 lead.

On the very next series it was Carroll coming off the same corner on another blitz, this time stripping the ball from Sanchez. Defensive tackle Paul Soliai caught it on a deflection at the Jets’ 32 and the offense converted that into another touchdown, a 3-yard run by Daniel Thomas.

“We saw that they weren’t expecting corners to come on the blitz and Coach (Kevin Coyle) told us that during the week,” Carroll said. “So we dialed up a blitz and we got in both times. Lex Hilliard came up to block me and once I came around him I thought Sanchez had thrown the ball, but then I realized he hadn’t and we work on that tomahawk move in practice. It worked out great and it as good to see the offense convert that into points for us.”

When the Jets threatened to put some points on the board before the end of the first half, Vernon got up on the air and blocked Nick Folk’s 35-yard attempt to keep the score 20-0 at intermission. Clemons picked off a Sanchez pass at the Miami 1 in the third quarter to prevent another score and the Dolphins pretty much cruised from there.

Now Miami gets to take a three-game winning streak into Indianapolis next week against the Colts and the confidence of knowing it is keeping pace with the AFC East-leading New England Patriots, who won big in London, England today over the Rams. New England is 5-3.

“It feels great and I know our fans are proud of us, our ownership is proud of us and we’ve turned this thing completely around after starting out 0-7 last season,” said center Mike Pouncey, who was a rookie last year. “Our coaching staff did a great job putting us in this situation we’re in right now. We’re just going to keep looking forward. It’s a bright future for us.”