The quarterbacks Dolphins fans should monitor in ’19 don’t play for the Dolphins — yet | Opinion

The thing with these Miami Dolphins the next few months is watching how the dynamic between quarterbacks Ryan Fitzpatrick and Josh Rosen plays out because everyone wants to see if something amazing happens to change the franchise’s course.

And maybe something amazing happens.

Maybe Rosen suddenly blossoms. Maybe Fitzpatrick has a career year. And maybe the Dolphins finally get great play out of the most important position on the field.

Except the preseason and training camp haven’t suggested that’s the way this is going to go. Those practices, with their endless periods of 7-on-7 and red-zone and team drills have blared that the Dolphins have two incomplete quarterbacks.

Fitzpatrick, the 14-year veteran, is maddeningly unreliable. He is excellent in the locker room. He has amazing leadership skills. He knows and understands defenses and what to do with the football. But his accuracy and decision-making and, you know, arm are simply not elite.

That’s the reason he has jumped from team to team eight times in his career. Consistent is not a word describing Fitzpatrick’s play.

Rosen is younger and has tons of promise. He has a good arm. He has relatively good accuracy. He should be a good NFL quarterback.

But something is missing. Something intangible is just not there. And it really has never been there going back to his college days.

Dolphins coaches have asked him to improve his “body language,” which is another way of saying he needs to improve his demeanor. But that’s a personality trait not a football skill.

So can Rosen basically change his personality?

How can he inspire? How can he instill confidence? How can he lift others up when he’s often seemingly quite busy trying to keep himself from sinking?

This dynamic of quarterbacks with vastly different holes in their repertoire has been a conversation among the football people in and around the Dolphins. And one smart observer recently put it to me this way:

“I look at these two guys and it’s the Jay Cutler experience all over again,” he said.

He’s absolutely correct. Cutler, who played for Miami in 2017, had one of the NFL’s finest arms. He was smart. He was experienced. He generally knew what to do with the football. He should have been great.

But he came with this, this, ugh, that made you want to be nowhere near him. He seemed disinterested. He was smug at times. He made you wonder if the game was really important to him. And, yes, he was wildly inconsistent — playing like a Hall of Famer one week, and then soiling himself the next.

And Fitzpatrick and Rosen combine to embody many of those traits. Because Fitz is experienced and knows what to do, and Rosen has a gifted arm and both are exceedingly smart.

But both these guys also take after Cutler in that they sometimes do very questionable things with the football on the field (Fitzpatrick and Rosen), they are capable of incredible highs followed by shocking lows (Fitzpatrick) and their body language does not rally others (Rosen) around the team’s most important leadership position.

It’s Jay Cutler 2.0 in Miami.

So I have a suggestion for you. It’s a suggestion the Dolphins already plan to follow because they currently are not making any long-term plans to ride or die with Fitzpatrick or Rosen beyond 2019 — not that they have to at this stage, anyway.

The suggestion is keep your eyes on the best quarterbacks in college. Sure, enjoy your Sundays watching Fitzpatrick or Rosen — both are likely to start games in Miami this season. But also carve out time on Saturdays and note what happens in Oregon, Alabama, Georgia and maybe even Utah State.

Because that’s where you will find the Dolphins quarterback beyond this season. That’s where this franchise is heading.

Pay attention to Oregon’s Justin Herbert.

To Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa.

To Georgia’s Jake Fromm.

And to Utah State’s Jordan Love.

One of these guys is likely headed to Miami next spring as the latest and greatest hope South Florida has for finally finding an heir to Dan Marino.

All of these young men merit your attention as much as Fitzpatrick and Rosen. Because even though they have never played an NFL game, they seem to have as much promise of inheriting Miami’s 2020 offense as either Rosen or Fitzpatrick.

So now a quick scouting report on your 2020 quarterback:

Herbert has every measurable trait of an NFL quarterback. He’s 6-6 and 238 pounds. He has a great arm. He is, by every account, a great person.

But there are questions. Why did his completion percentage dip from 67.5 in 2017 to 59.4 in 2018? Why couldn’t he seem to lift the play of his teammates? Why did a player with so much NFL potential not play like a college star?

Tagovailoa will be the most scrutinized player in this group because he plays under the Alabama microscope. He has great accuracy. He has excellent instinct. He’s also a great kid.

But is he too fragile after sustaining multiple injuries last year? Why did he pad his stats against the lesser teams but throw six interceptions against the better teams Alabama played? And is his performance a product of the abundant talent Alabama has around him, including two receivers who will likely be first-round draft picks?

Fromm plays with great instinct. He is a favorite among his teammates and is recognized as a leader. He has obviously been very successful, leading Georgia to the national championship game in 2017 — a game Alabama won, with Tagovailoa playing very well.

The questions about Fromm have to do with his arm strength. Can he make all the necessary throws? Can he drive the football?

Love looks like a prototypical NFL quarterback at 6-4 and 220 pounds. He has a live arm. He has shown steady improvement, throwing more touchdowns, fewer interceptions and raising his completion percentage from 54.9 to 64 percent the past two years.

The questions? He’s more of a project, and teams will have to measure how much patience they’re willing to have with a first-round rookie in an age where first-rounders typically see the field their first season. The competition Love’s facing is not on the same level as the other three, and that also raises questions.

All four of these quarterbacks were born in 1998, about one year before Marino played his final NFL game. Yeah, it has been that long, folks.

The next great Dolphins quarterback never saw Marino play live.