But somehow the Dolphins have never been required to purchase a tarp for the Orange Bowl.

The irony of the tarpaulin controversy is that Al Ward, once the Jets' president and now assistant to the president of the American Conference, was in charge of the preparations for yesterday's game. After a heavy rain Thursday, the Miami weather bureau forecast a 70 percent chance of rain Saturday and a 30 percent chance yesterday.

''They could've trucked in a tarpaulin from somewhere nearby,'' Jim Kensil, the Jets' president, said before yesterday's game. ''We could've brought our own tarps down if we'd known.''

At halftime yesterday, the Hardee County High School band from Wauchula, Fla. was ordered not to march on the field by Don Weiss, the N.F.L.'s executive director. But by then it was as if the Jets' offense also had been ordered not to march on the field. Freeman McNeil couldn't cut, Richard Todd couldn't seem to plant himself before passing and Wesley Walker disappeared. The wide receiver had been the Jets' most effective weapon in their playoff victories in Los Angeles and Cincinnati and he had punctured the Dolphins' defense throughout his Jet career.

''The conditions didn't help,'' Wesley Walker said later, ''but the Dolphins were on the same field we were.'' In his previous 10 games against the Dolphins over five seasons, Wesley Walker had caught 42 passes for 785 yards and 9 touchdowns. In two games during the recent strike-shortened season, he had caught nine passes for 130 yards against the Dolphins; of the seven touchdown passes permitted by the Dolphins in their other 11 games, Wesley Walker had caught three.

''Good football teams with a good wide receiver like Wesley Walker stretch the field,'' Bill Arnsparger, who designs the Dolphin defenses, said last week. ''On defense you have to play the width of the field against everybody. But the good teams make you play the length of the field, too.''

But the mud shortened the length of the field for the Jets yesterday. As the Jets trudged into their locker room, their green jerseys and white pants were almost all smeared and smudged with mud. But not Wesley Walker's uniform. Except for a dirty smear across each knee, his uniform was spotless. He had caught only one pass, for no gain.

And he didn't catch that pass until the Jets' next-to-last play late in the last quarter long after the Dolphins had canceled the Jets' trip to the Super Bowl.