Dolphins’ Gailey takes blame for Tua’s Denver struggles, praise for Bowden and more
The low point in Tua Tagovailoa’s rookie season was a month ago in Denver, when an ineffective three quarters of play led to his benching.
Tagovailoa completed 11 of 20 passes for just 83 yards, and the offense had such little juice that Brian Flores believed Ryan Fitzpatrick gave the team the best chance to come back from a 10-point deficit.
But one month later, Dolphins offensive coordinator Chan Gailey shed new light on that rough outing — and took the blame for Tagovailoa’s struggles that day.
“I think Denver did a great job,” Gailey said. “They did some things that we didn’t plan on and it hurt us. That’s my job. It wasn’t him as much as it was me in that ballgame. I think we’ve progressed and [we’re] learning where he’s comfortable ... and how we can incorporate what’s comfortable to him. It takes time. You don’t like to say that. You want it all to come together immediately. I think we’re working toward what we can be for some time. I don’t think we’ve gotten there, we’re still progressing, but we’ve made some progress.”
The next step for Tagovailoa? Stretching the field. The longest completion of his career is just 35 yards, and he had none longer than 15 yards last week against the Patriots.
▪ Lynn Bowden’s late-season development has been one of the biggest boons to a Dolphins offense that was without its top five pass-catchers in Week 15.
Bowden, a rookie traded to the Dolphins by the Raiders just before the start of the season, has caught 17 passes the past three games after just one the first 11. Bowden has shown a knack not just for getting open and catching the football, but making tacklers miss in the open field.
“You can watch kids that come through today, which one played tag growing up and which ones didn’t play tag,” Gailey said. “If you play tag, you know how to make a guy miss. He played a lot of tag.
“He’s got that knack to sidestep, juke,” Gailey said. “He’s pretty good at avoiding that head on-collision. His development has been, not as quick as he wanted, but he had a lot to learn. He had a lot to learn in our offense. He got here late, [spent time] learning what to do and where to line up and how to run the routes and where we wanted him. He’s really come on really well in the last three or four weeks. He’s started to find where he is in the offense.”
▪ This might be the toughest prep week of the season for the Dolphins. They play on Saturday night, with Christmas on Friday, when they will fly cross-country to Las Vegas.
The time crunch is particularly tough on the coaches, who usually get two full days to prepare a game plan before presenting it to the team.
“It’s a different situation but that’s what’s presented in front of us,” said Dolphins defensive coordinator Josh Boyer. “You’ve got to cram as much in as you possibly can. We are human. There’s a holiday element here, sometimes you’ve got to be able to block all of that out. We’ve worked really hard all year to put ourselves in this position, to play meaningful games. Our sole focus is on the Raiders and putting our guys in the best position to succeed. Whatever the [calendar] says, things have got to get done. That’s where our time, effort and energy has really been.”
▪ After allowing 27 points in a Monday night loss to the Bengals, the Steelers fell to second in scoring defense on the year.
The new No. 1 team?
The Miami Dolphins, who have allowed just 18.4 points per game. It will take their best effort to remain there over the final two weeks, however. Their last two opponents, the Raiders and Bills, both average at least 26.9 points per game.
▪ The Dolphins held a walk-through Tuesday, but since their next game was only four days off, they had to release an injury report.
Nine players would have been limited had the team practiced: linebacker Jerome Baker (knee), safety Clayton Fejedelem (thumb), guard Ereck Flowers (ankle), tight end Mike Gesicki (shoulder), receiver Jakeem Grant (hamstring), defensive end Shaq Lawson (shoulder), safety Bobby McCain (ankle), wide receiver DeVante Parker (hamstring) and linebacker Kyle Van Noy (hip).
▪ Bobby McCain on the NFL’s top-scoring defense getting just one Pro Bowler (Xavien Howard): “It definitely sucks. ... We had a couple of guys that could have made it and it’s disappointing.”
This story was originally published December 22, 2020 at 11:05 AM.
