FOXBORO — Joey Porter tried. He really did.

The Miami Dolphins linebacker, who has never been shy about voicing his opinions and was recently voted by his peers as the second-dirtiest player in the NFL, knew that the New England reporters with whom he was on a conference call Wednesday were trying to get him to say something bulletin-board worthy.

AP Photo / Jeffrey M. Boan

Miami Dolphins' Joey Porter reacts at the start of an NFL football game against the Oakland Raiders, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2008, at Dolphin Stadium in Miami.

He even called them on it, saying that if the conversation was going to be about fishing, “you guys ought to come out here to Miami and we’ve got some good lakes to fish here.”

But in the end, he just couldn’t help himself.

It started tamely enough: Porter and his teammates said they “hated” the Jets after winning in New York last week, so Porter was asked about his feelings for the Patriots.

“Same way they feel about me. So do you want me to say it first?” he asked.

Porter was told by a reporter that he didn’t know how New England felt about him.

“You know they don’t like me. Everybody knows, let’s be honest: they don’t like me, and that’s fair. I don’t like them, and that’s fair. So it’s not like it’s a divorce happening; we were never really married anyway.”

That drew laughs.

Porter didn’t stop there, however.

Now in his 11th NFL season and third with Miami, the four-time Pro Bowler began his career with the Steelers. When Pittsburgh put an end to the Pats’ 21-game win streak on Halloween 2004, Porter was caught by cameras screeching on the sidelines that the Patriots could never be the Steelers — who at that point hadn’t been to a Super Bowl since 1996, while New England had won two of the previous three.

The Steelers lost the 2001 and ’04 AFC Championship games to New England, and ever since the saga known as CameraGate came to light, Porter has let it be known that he feels he was robbed of rings.

“My feelings toward New England go back further (than his days with Miami). It goes back to my Pittsburgh days, so I felt a certain way after some things came out, way back when,” he said. “I was in Pittsburgh for some AFC Championships that I lost to them a couple of times, that come to figure out a month later why we lost. So yeah, I have a natural hate for them — period. And that’s just going to be with me forever. That’s not ever going to change.”

Porter was asked to specify what he was talking about.

“Nope. You can fill in the blanks. Y’all are smart guys over there,” he replied.

The subject of Porter’s lost rings came up, but he realized he had said enough.

“I mean, we do this every year around this time I do this conference call,” he said. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. And they know exactly what I’m talking about. And that’s not going to change my thought process on that situation.”

Now Porter sees his enemies twice a season, though this season, the Dolphins are defending AFC East champions, after New England held that distinction for five straight years.

Porter agreed that the road to the division title now goes through the Dolphins — sort of.

“Division goes to the last champion — period. The last champion was the Miami Dolphins, so we have the (division) championship until we lose it. It’s ours to lose,” he said. “You can’t just crown the champions because they used to be champions back in the day.”

While New England comes into this week’s game with a 5-2 record to the Dolphins’ 3-4, all three of Miami’s wins have come against divisional opponents, while the Pats are currently 1-1 in the East.

Last year, before Miami’s Week Three visit to Foxboro, Porter crowed that the then-winless Dolphins would get their first victory against the Pats; he certainly held up his end of the bargain, sacking Matt Cassel three times in Miami’s win.

Before the Week 12 rematch, Porter talked even more, to ESPN. During a taped pregame interview segment, he mentioned that his chance at a dynasty was taken from him and that New England’s titles should carry an asterisk.

His comments Wednesday will certainly gain more notice in the Patriots’ locker room, though as has been established, it’s not as if Porter will be sitting down for tea with Bill Belichick and Tom Brady after the game.