• By SHELDON MICKLES
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Oct 23, 2009

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At 5-0, the New Orleans Saints don’t want to get caught in a trap.

Which is why Saints players politely disagreed this week whenever anyone used that little four-letter word to describe Sunday’s matchup against the 2-3 Miami Dolphins.

Yes, the Dolphins started 0-3 this season.

Yes, they scored a total of 43 points in those three games, two fewer points than the Saints scored in their first game alone.

Yes, they lost starting quarterback Chad Pennington for the rest of the season to a shoulder injury in Week 3.

But that’s where the similarities to a bad team lying in wait end, say the Saints.

What they’re looking at suggests the exact opposite — a team that won its last two games by scores of 38-10 and 31-27. More so, it’s well-rested and healthy coming off a bye, and don’t forget it’s playing at home.

“It’s not even close to being a trap game,” Saints linebacker Scott Fujita said. “It’s not like we’re playing some 0-16 team, or a 1-5 team. This is a team that can play.”

There’s plenty of reasons to be wary of the Dolphins.

They won the AFC East last season under first-year coach Tony Sparano after a sluggish 2-4 start, going 9-1 in the final 10 games to keep the New England Patriots out of the postseason.

They have the most productive running game in the NFL through six weeks thanks to the wildly popular wildcat formation, which they introduced to the league just more than a year ago, and have a top-10 defense.

“We’re talking about a team that just won its division a year ago and is playing well now in the last few weeks,” Saints coach Sean Payton said. “This is a team that’s changed and gotten its program going in the right direction, and has gotten the right leadership and all of the things we’re talking about here.”

At the same time, the Saints, who are coming off a 21-point pasting of the previously unbeaten New York Giants, are better equipped to handle this type of game than in 2006 — when they were still in the growing stages under Payton.