Can Matt Moore, Miami’s fun-loving ‘baller,’ keep the Dolphins’ season afloat again?

Anthony Fasano first met Matt Moore in 2007. They were young teammates in Dallas, and while the Cowboys did not keep Moore long, he left an impression.

“He’s one of those guys who’s kind of good at everything,” Fasano, Moore’s current-day teammate with the Dolphins, said Monday. “Whatever he picks up, he’s good at.”

Fasano continued: “You just feel the energy in the huddle from him. I just call him a baller. He’s just kind of an old-school baller, going out there and playing ball.”

Moore will get a chance to ball Thursday. That much we know, with Jay Cutler out for at least this week (and probably beyond) with a chest injury that Adam Gase confirmed was multiple cracked ribs.

And unlike in August, when the Dolphins found Ryan Tannehill’s replacement from the outside, Moore will not get passed over again. They will bring in a backup from the outside — while the Dolphins did not make a roster move Monday, all indications are they will sign David Fales, who spent training camp with Miami — but to support Moore, not replace him.

How long he remains as the Dolphins’ starter probably depends on how well Moore plays in his third stint as Miami’s super sub. Adam Gase sidestepped that question Monday, saying he is only focused on Thursday’s rapidly approaching game against the Ravens.

The Miami Herald has learned that the Dolphins plan on to returning to Cutler when healthy, but Gase left himself some wiggle-room Monday in a way that he did not shortly after Tannehill got hurt last fall. Gase said without equivocation then that Tannehill would be his starter when healthy.

“I’m not even ready to go anywhere near anything with quarterback,” Gase said. “I know who’s available this week, possibly, and what I’m going to do. After that, I’ll move on from there.”

Moore could conceivably win himself the job by playing lights out. But he must prove that the spark he provided Sunday was no sugar rush. Moore rallied the Dolphins from 14 points down to beat the Jets, completing 13 of 21 passes for 188 yards, two touchdowns and a pick.

“Matt is a fiery guy,” receiver Kenny Stills said. “He loves to have fun. He has been doing this thing for a long time. He’s still the guy in here every day that’s talking trash. Every time you see him throw a good ball, he’s screaming, ‘Dimer!’ or doing the shots fired [pose].”

Stills continued: “He really just enjoys his job. He loves being here. That kind of just … it spreads to everyone else on the team. We go out there and we have fun. We know he’s going to give us an opportunity to go make plays as a receiving corps. We know he’s going to be prepared to help us win the game.”

Moore, part of the organization for seven years, has loyalties inside the locker room that Cutler does not. Moore did well enough when Tannehill went down with his first of two knee injuries that the Dolphins made the playoffs last year for the first time since 2016. And Moore, as Stills notes, is an affable, easy-going fellow.

Still, pro athletes are, by and large, driven by the bottom line. They know who is playing well, and who is playing poorly, and expect that the same competitive forces that decide every other position battle should decide who starts at quarterback.

Moore has smartly, and delicately, danced around such questions not just this season, but since Tannehill was drafted. Moore lost a training-camp quarterback competition to Tannehill in 2012, but never made waves. Rather, he has been OK enough with how he has been treated here to re-sign with the Dolphins multiple times since then.

And after fans chanted “We Want Moore” during Cutler’s first home regular season game as a Miami Dolphin, Moore tried to diffuse any controversy when asked about it by reporters.

In short, he has the perfect temperament to be a backup; he brims with confidence when his number is called, but stays out the way when it’s someone else’s time.

“Maybe it’s his personality,” Fasano said. “Maybe he’s worked that into the player he is after being behind a guy most of his career. Maybe it’s in him, maybe he’s adapted to it.”

Time to adapt again. Supportive sidekick needs to transform into the brash “baller” Fasano has known for a decade.

Miami Herald sportswriter Armando Salguero contributed to this report.

This story was originally published October 23, 2017 at 5:31 PM with the headline "Can Matt Moore, Miami’s fun-loving ‘baller,’ keep the Dolphins’ season afloat again?."