Tagovailoa activated; how he’s protecting himself. And Dolphins make four roster moves
Tua Tagovailoa’s return to the Dolphins became official on Saturday, when the team activated him off injured reserve.
He will start Sunday’s game against visiting Arizona, carrying the proverbial hopes of his teammates and the Dolphins’ fan base on his shoulders.
In order to create a spot on the 53-man roster, the Dolphins released quarterback Tim Boyle. Miami will have two quarterbacks available on Sunday: Tagovailoa and backup Skylar Thompson.
Because the Dolphins have only two quarterbacks on the 53-man roster, practice squad player C.J. Beathard cannot be available as an emergency third quarterback on Sunday. Teams must have three quarterbacks on their 53-man roster in order to have an emergency third quarterback; the Dolphins have only two.
Also Saturday, the Dolphins elevated two players from the practice squad: defensive lineman Neil Farrell and long snapper Matt Overton.
Tagovailoa will be playing in his first game in 46 days, having missed five weeks (and four games) on injured reserve while recovering from a Sept. 12 concussion against Buffalo.
Tagovailoa said he had no symptoms since Sept. 13, but medical experts advised him not to play for several weeks, to allow his brain time to heal. Coach Mike McDaniel said Tagovailoa met with several experts around the country and that no doctor recommended that he retire.
By all accounts, he looked sharp in practice this week.
“He looks great, man,” left tackle Terron Armstead said Friday. “He’s locked in, helping get everybody where they need to be, locked in on the details, all the small things. We’re focusing on those nuances for sure, that have been helping us lose games, so we’re trying to clean all that up.”
As defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver said this week, Tagovailoa’s return brings hope to a franchise that has lost four of its first six games.
“He has an energy about him that’s contagious, that you have no choice but to gravitate towards,” Armstead said. “And it’s very much reinvigorating and revitalizing for our offense that’s been struggling.”
Tagovailoa opted not to wear a guardian cap -- “personal choice,” was his explanation -- but will continue to wear a VICIS ZERO2 MATRIX ID helmet that is purported to offer the most protection against head injuries.
NFL Chief Medical Officer Allen Sills told CBS Sports that Tagovailoa wouldn’t receive much -- if any -- additional protection with a guarding cap because of the padding in the helmet that he has worn this season.
“For most helmets adding a guardian cap, an extra layer of padding, will reduce the force of each blow by somewhere between 10 and 15 percent,” Sills told CBS’ Jonathan Jones. “Now there is a subset of helmets that we tagged as guardian cap optional. And the reason for that was that those helmets in the laboratory testing showed that there really was not additional benefit of that magnitude by adding a guardian cap.
“In other words, the helmet itself was doing as good a job of mitigating the force as a regular helmet plus a guardian cap. So adding a Guardian Cap to those helmets did not show that same 10 to 15 percent benefit.”
As for the practice squad elevations, Farrell will give the Dolphins a fifth healthy defensive lineman in the wake of Zach Sieler’s fractured orbital bone injury, which will sideline him Sunday and potentially beyond.
Farrell, a 2022 Raiders fourth-round pick out of LSU, joins Calais Campbell, Benito Jones, Da’Shawn Hand and Brandon Pili as defensive linemen available to the Dolphins on Sunday. Farrell, who is 6-4 and 325 pounds, has 13 tackles in 12 NFL games for the Raiders and Chiefs.
Overton will again fill in for Blake Ferguson, who will be out at least three more games because of an undisclosed personal issue. This was Overton’s second elevation; players can be elevated three times in a season.
The Dolphins -- who will be without Kader Kohou (neck) and likely Storm Duck (ankle) -- activated cornerback Cam Smith off injured reserve this past week but did not elevate another defensive back. Teams are limited to two practice squad elevations for each game.
Miami will enter Sunday’s game with five available cornerbacks: Jalen Ramsey, Kendall Fuller, Smith, Siran Neal and Ethan Bonner. Safety Jevon Holland can also play a nickel corner type role, with Jordan Poyer and Marcus Maye playing safety in those lineups.
This story was originally published October 26, 2024 at 3:53 PM.
