‘Can’t nobody stop us.’ With Tua Tagovailoa back at QB1, the Dolphins have hope
Surprise, surprise: Tua Tagovailoa will start Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals for the first time in more than a month.
This shouldn’t be news to anybody. The franchise quarterback returned to practice this week and said Monday that he hasn’t felt any symptoms since the day after suffering a concussion against the Buffalo Bills on Sept. 12. As has been written, Tagovailoa shouldn’t be considered the savior. He’s just one man. But with the energy that Tagovailoa brings to the field and the Cardinals team ranking 26th against the pass, there’s potential for Tagovailoa’s return to not only be a bit better than expected but propel the Dolphins into the playoffs – barring any unforeseen injuries.
“When Tua is a part of this offense, can’t nobody stop us, bro,” Tyreek Hill said Wednesday, just minutes after exclaiming that he and Tagovailoa connected on a deep ball in practice. “We should score every day. That’s the way I look at it. We’ve got too much talent.”
The reality of the situation is that Tagovailoa gives the Dolphins the best chance to have a productive offensive, something that they have certainly lacked in the four games since his injury. Even more accurate: Tagovailoa gives the Dolphins the best chance to succeed. And if Miami wants to have any chance to make the postseason, it starts Sunday afternoon against the Cardinals.
“He looks great, man,” Terron Armstead said of Tagovailoa. “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.”
From a defensive perspective, the Dolphins must contain Kyler Murray, whom defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver compared to “Tyreek playing quarterback.” Through seven games, Murray has the third-most rushing yards among quarterbacks with 325. The task, however, got a lat more difficult when coach Mike McDaniel confirmed that Zach Sieler, arguably the Dolphins best pass rusher, got poked in the eye and will sit out Sunday. His absence puts a lot more pressure on the secondary, one that will get back a rising star in Jevón Holland but will be without nickel cornerback Kader Kohou.
“That threat in the middle makes the quarterback to have to get the ball out quick and forces the coverage to be a lot shorter,” safety Marcus Maye said of Sieler. “Losing him is a big blow and we know Kyler likes to scramble and run around and things like that so we just have to be able to cover for longer.”
A win would put the Dolphins at 3-4. If the next four games – away against the Bills and the Los Angeles Rams then home against the Las Vegas Raiders and the New England Patriots – yield three wins, it would put the Dolphins back in the playoff conversation. More than a single loss over that stretch would be detrimental to the Dolphins’ playoff hopes considering the season ends with two matchups against the new-look New York Jets, away games against three 2023 postseason teams (Green Bay Packers, Houston Texans and Cleveland Browns) as well as a visit from the reigning NFC champion San Francisco 49ers. As McDaniel said Friday, the margin of error is a lot smaller now.
“When you lose games, when you have four losses out of six, your margin for error gets smaller,” McDaniel said. “You don’t get those opportunities to just, ‘Oh, that one got through our fingertips,’ and I think they understand that.”
Added McDaniel: “The main thing that I’ve been pressing guys through this entire season, but particularly after the three-game losing streak and then after this last loss, is that you don’t have these losses – you don’t experience them in vain. They have to mean something.”
Although Tagovailoa being deemed as the savior negates the responsibility of the other 32 starters, the success of the Dolphins for the rest of 2024 ultimately hinges on his health. He’s going to have to slightly change the way he plays – many of his teammates joked about him having to learn how to slide – but the season is far from over as long as Tagovailoa remains QB1. Look no further than his former Alabama coach Nick Saban as to why a slight alteration of his play style will help not just Tagovailoa but the Dolphins in general.
“Every time he got hurt at Bama, there was not a play to be made and he tried to make a play,” Saban said Friday on “The Pat McAfee Show.” “I think there’s a way you have to play your position at quarterback that there’s a time when you got to know you got to give up on the play – there’s no play to be made here. You want to play with toughness – I admire his grit, I admire his toughness, his mental toughness – but you also have to know, ‘Hey, I need to slide. I don’t need to take a hit so that I can continue to be able to play and be healthy and not put myself at risk.’ I think that’s important for him.”
