Another unexpected and significant setback to the Miami Dolphins’ 2019 tank plan | Opinion
Welcome to this week’s edition of ... As the Tank rolls.
When we last tuned in on the Miami Dolphins 2019 tanking season, we realized things weren’t going quite as planned.
The Dolphins, despite their trade-depleted, hole-ridden roster, were not only competing but actually winning some games. Losing enough in 2019 to draft that forever franchise quarterback in 2020 was looking more difficult because other teams were inexplicably worse than the Dolphins.
And only one quarterback — Louisiana State’s Joe Burrow — seemed worthy of a very high pick. Because Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa got seriously hurt. And Oregon’s Justin Herbert was seriously inconsistent.
Oh noes!
On this week’s edition, the news continues to get worse.
(Please understand “worse” is used in the context of how the Dolphins would be positioned for the 2020 draft. Mando personally enjoys covering a team when it wins because Mando is a winner and enjoys being in the company of similar awesomeness, so winning is not personally worse for Mando).
Anyway, here’s the worsening situation:
Although the Dolphins didn’t necessarily think they would pick Tagovailoa with the first of their three first-round picks after his hip injury, the fact remained they might still be tempted to use one of the later selections on the quarterback next April.
The idea here would be to pick an edge rusher or left tackle or other cornerstone position early and then perhaps go with Tagovailoa with one of the picks that come courtesy of the Pittsburgh Steelers or Houston Texans.
The problem with that is on Tuesday, Tagovailoa told the Tuscaloosa News he might not declare for 2020 before the January 20 deadline for underclassmen to apply for draft eligibility.
“I’m still talking with my parents about it,” Tagovailoa told the newspaper. “I’m still not too sure. A decision could come tomorrow or I could wait and decide on the 20th of January.
“Whatever God puts in my heart and my parents’ hearts, that will be the right thing.”
Tagovailoa, a redshirt sophomore, said he was carefully considering both possibilities and wasn’t completely sold on declaring for the draft. He called it looking “at both sides of the spectrum.”
“There is a risk and a reward if I stay and a risk and a reward if I go,” Tagovailoa told the News. “The risk if I stay is obviously ‘Do I get hurt again?’ The reward is that I could come back and have another good year like my sophomore year and elevate myself back to the very top of the draft.
“If I leave, I think the risk is a little higher. That risk would be how far do I drop in the draft. To me, it’s 50-50 between going in the first round and possibly going in the second round. If I go somewhere from first [overall] to around 24th, the money will be set. But let’s say — and I am just picking a number — that I go to the 31st pick.
“That would be about $9 million. That’s a lot of money, an amount of money I’ve never had before, but it’s not high first-round money and you can never make that money up. They say you can [make it up] on your next contract but money lost is money lost to me.”
So that’s the dilemma Tagovailoa finds himself in after he dislocated his hip and underwent surgery to repair the issue and an fracture.
“Those are the deciding factors,” Tagovailoa said. “If my parents tell me that they think I should leave, that is obviously going to be a factor. But so far, they’ve told me that it’s my decision.”
More bad news?
In another interview with ESPN, Tua talked about his injury and referring to doctors said, “These guys don’t even know if I can play with the hip injury yet.”
It remains unclear if the quarterback meant play in 2020 or ever again. Doctors have stated publicly Tagovailoa is expected to make a full recovery.
So obviously the realistic chance Tagovailoa is not in the 2020 draft is a setback to the Dolphins plans to consider Tagovailoa as a key 2020 possibility.
And here’s the other little ditty that we must consider as the team begins its final month of the season: They might keep winning.
The Dolphins (3-9) travel to the New York Jets on Sunday. They already beat the Jets at Hard Rock Stadium in November. Then Miami returns to New York the following Sunday for a game against the New York Giants. The Giants have the NFL’s second-worst record at 2-10.
And then Miami will host the Cincinnati Bengals on December 22. The Bengals (1-11) have the NFL’s worst record.
It is entirely conceivable the Dolphins might wake up the morning of December 23 riding a four-game winning streak and proud owners of a 6-9 record.
And now recall the team picked 13th overall last April after finishing 7-9 in 2018.
Not exactly what anyone planned.
This story was originally published December 4, 2019 at 1:26 AM.
