Extra points: 8 more thoughts on Tua, rookies and the Dolphins’ wild win over the Ravens
Even when the Miami Dolphins win, they can’t make it normal.
Of course, they’ll take unusual when the result is a 22-10 win against the Baltimore Ravens at Hard Rock Stadium.
Here are 10 more thoughts from the Dolphins’ wild win in Miami Gardens:
1. Tua Tagovailoa puts a quarterback controversy to bed — again. Even going back to his time with the Alabama Crimson Tide, Tagovailoa hasn’t been able to escape controversy.
He burst onto the national scene when he replaced Jalen Hurts to lead a comeback in the 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship Game. His hip injury made him one of the most polarizing figures leading into the 2020 NFL Draft. As a rookie, he split time with Ryan Fitzpatrick and even when he was given the job earlier this year he spent the first half of the season with the specter of a potential Deshaun Watson trade looming over him.
His latest controversy is one of the most inexplicable yet. The quarterback fractured the middle finger on his left hand on Halloween, so the Dolphins (3-7) relegated him to a reserve role Sunday against the Houston Texans and again Thursday. Miami really didn’t want to him play through the injury, until quarterback Jacoby Brissett hurt his right knee in the third quarter, then they had no choice.
The result was a signature performance for the 23-year-old. He entered with the Dolphins nursing a 6-3 lead and led them on a pair of fourth-quarter scoring drives to beat one of the best teams in the NFL.
Playing through pain, Tagovailoa went 8 of 13 for 158 yards and ran for a touchdown.
2. Needless to say, Tagovailoa deserves this. Miami has done him very few favors since picking him fifth overall last year, failing to build up any semblance of a reliable supporting cast and seldom committing to him as its guy. His emotion was obvious after he ran in a fourth-quarter touchdown to ice the win.
3. The Dolphins keep botching their quarterback situation. Benching Tagovailoa to chase wins with Fitzpatrick was one thing. Even their courtship of Watson was somewhat understandable. Their decision to go with Brissett over Tagovailoa — and still keep Tagovailoa active — borders on inexplicable.
Coach Brian Flores did give an explanation for the decision Thursday, it just wasn’t exactly satisfying. As he put it, “driving the ball down the field was something that was a little bit of an issue” and it made him feel Brissett was the better option.
The problem is none of this exactly squared with what Tagovailoa did on the field. His 35-yard completion to wide receiver Jaylen Waddle, for example, traveled 45.8 yards in the air — the longest distance on a pass in his entire career.
4. Give Flores credit for the defense, though. Although Flores noted defensive coordinator Josh Boyer is still calling plays, the Dolphins’ defense played in Flores’ image Thursday, throwing all sorts of creative blitzes at Lamar Jackson to stymie the Ravens’ offense.
Jevon Holland blitzed 21 times to get a sack and a tackle for loss, and Brandon Jones blitzed 17 to pile up seven tackles. Both safeties blitzed more Thursday than any other defense back had in any game since at least 2015.
Miami blitzes at the highest rate in the NFL and those numbers have ticked up as the season has gone on. The defense’s play has improved along with it, and Thursday was its best performance yet and a third straight strong performance from the unit.
5. Holland, by the way, is becoming a legitimate star. Thursday was also a signature performance for him. On the second play from scrimmage, the rookie delivered a crunching hit on Baltimore wide receiver Devin Duvernay at the end of a 19-yard run. At the end of the opening drive, he timed a blitz perfectly on third-and-9 to hit Jackson while threw, forcing the superstar quarterback into an incomplete pass and the Ravens (6-3) to settle for a field goal.
Two drives later, Holland also added a pass break-up when he ranged way across the field to knock down a pass intended for Baltimore wide receiver Marquise Brown. This drive was actually all about the rookies.
6. Jaelan Phillips is also emerging. Two plays after Holland’s break-up, Jaelan Phillips combined with fellow linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel for a third-down sack to force a punt. It was the second straight game with a half sack for the rookie, who’s now up to 2 1/2 on the year.
7. Aggression worked on offense, too. Baltimore helped by blowing multiple coverages, but the Dolphins had their two longest plays of the season Thursday. First, Brissett hit a bomb to wide receiver Isaiah Ford for a 52-yard game in the second quarter to set up an early field goal. In the fourth quarter, Tagovailoa bested it by finding wide receiver Albert Wilson for a 62-yard gain to set up the late touchdown. Throw in the 35-yard pass to Waddle and Miami made about as many down-the-field plays as it had connected all season.
The playcalling was as creative as it has been all year, too. In the second quarter, the Dolphins faced a third-and-1 and threw for only the third time in that situation all season, and they were rewarded with a 21-yard completion to tight end Adam Shaheen. In the third quarter, Miami ran a creative flea flicker where Tagovailoa caught a pitch from Myles Gaskin then threw a quick pass right back to the running back for a 14-yard gain.
8. There’s even a screen to a lineman somewhere in the playbook? OK, not quite, but maybe there should be after Robert Hunt rumbled into the end zone on an extremely illegal screen play in the third quarter. The offensive lineman admitted he basically “blanked out” when he reached up and caught a pass intended for Gaskin, but the result was the most memorable moment of the game as he stretched for a non-touchdown in the fourth quarter.
The score, unfortunately, got wiped away for illegal touching because a lineman can’t be the first to touch a quarterback’s pass. Ultimately, who cares? Miami got the win and everyone got to watch a 6-foot-6, 327-pound lineman somersault his way across the goal line like he was in a Renaissance painting.
