The future of Tua Tagovailoa and Chan Gailey among the issues facing Dolphins offense | Opinion
Chan Gailey may or may not retire. Tua Tagovailoa may or may not be the starting quarterback in 2021.
Otherwise nothing to see here with the Miami Dolphins offense as the 2021 offseason kicked off unceremoniously for them on Monday.
Miami’s offense, which finished 15th in scoring, is already making more noise in the offseason than it did at times during the regular-season because there are just so many darned questions to be answered.
And within the Dolphins walls, where general manager Chris Grier and coach Brian Flores will decide on their answers, a clear theme has emerged to guide the process:
Consider everything.
Everything is on the table.
As Flores has said multiple times during his tenure, including on the first day of training camp in 2019, “there’s no sacred cows.”
So what are the important issues for the offense?
Well, a short list of the most fundamental:
▪ How will the Dolphins address the quarterback position?
▪ What will happen with Gailey, who turns 69 on Tuesday and at times seemed worn down perhaps by the assignments but definitely by the season and its weird pandemic-related rigors?
▪ And what are the draft priorities?
Addressing all of those will go far in determining whether this team continues to inch closer to owner Stephen Ross’s ultimate goal of fielding a championship contender every year.
And the Grier-Flores combo need to get most of their calls correct because, while 10-6 in 2020 was good in many ways, they have made it clear within the organization they have no delusions about their team.
They know there’s much good work still needed to meet their goal.
So what are the choices? And where are the potholes that can turn an issue into a problem?
Start at quarterback: The Dolphins have to decide if they want to commit to having Tua Tagovailoa as their presumptive starting quarterback in 2021. And while this should be a slam dunk answer for any team that just drafted its quarterback a year ago, a team aiming for titles cannot assume anything.
The Dolphins believe Tagovailoa improved as a rookie. Flores said so after Sunday’s 56-26 loss to the Buffalo Bills. Miami’s problem is the coach’s words didn’t always line up with what we saw on the field.
Tagovailoa, in fact, played his worst rather than his best game at season’s end when the Dolphins needed a performance that could help them get in the playoffs.
Gailey also didn’t show trust in Tagovailoa with his play calling until desperate times in games demanded longer throws, and tougher reads, and bigger plays.
Absent those extreme circumstances, Gailey, with a Flores stamp of approval, was often content to throw short.
He called one-read plays.
The Dolphins offense became dink and dunk.
The Dolphins protected the football and their chances of winning by limiting what they asked Tagovailoa to do.
Flores also benched Tagovailoa in two of nine starts and it would have been three of nine were it not that backup Ryan Fitzpatrick was unavailable against Bills.
So do the Dolphins trust Tagovailoa or not going forward?
Does the organization believe he will not only improve, but make a drastic jump to becoming an elite player if he’s surrounded with more talent?
Or does the organization ultimately believe it got it wrong by drafting Tagovailoa ahead of Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert, who threw for 4,336 yards and shattered the NFL rookie record with 31 touchdown passes?
The latter would be an unpleasant conclusion for Grier and Flores to reach because blowing a quarterback pick in the first round is usually an irredeemable NFL sin.
But with both men currently in stable job situations, they can probably afford to go for a quarterback redo to address their mistake if that’s what their expertise says is the wisest move.
This is definitely no time for Grier and Flores to stick their proverbial heads in the sand and insist everything is fine if they suspect it isn’t.
So the Dolphins will exam Tagovailoa top to bottom — his leadership, approach in the building, practice habits, study habits and his performance — to figure out what to do next. The educated guess is Miami sticks with Tagovailoa.
But that is not concrete until, well, it’s concrete.
A word of advice to the Dolphins: They must identify something Tagovailoa shows consistently on the field that is elite. That’s key.
Lamar Jackson was not breathtaking in his seven rookie starts but the Baltimore Ravens recognized he’s an elite runner. He has elite instincts. He has elite speed.
And they emphasized those things going forward.
Josh Allen, who just lit up the Miami defense, threw 10 touchdown and 12 interceptions as a rookie. He completed only 52 percent of his passes. But the Bills recognized his elite size, elite arm and great leadership that fit Buffalo’s workmanlike culture.
So Allen is an MVP candidate in his third season.
Miami must identify something amazing Tagovailoa can do that turns close games into wins if they want to stick with him.
The fascinating thing with the quarterback question is it has tentacles that reach into the coaching staff, the draft, and free agency.
Example:
Gailey or whoever the offensive coordinator is has to believe in Tagovailoa. And, again, the play-calling in 2020 often suggested that was not so.
One more thing about Gailey and his future: If he decides to leave, Flores will then have to hire his third offensive coordinator in three years, which is not a recipe for success much less continuity.
And what happens to offensive line coach Steve Marshall, who came primarily because he could teach the kind of techniques that best worked with Gailey’s offense?
The easiest and most convenient solution the Dolphins could advocate is keeping the status quo. If everything is right they might be able to keep Gailey and Tagovailoa in place, hoping for improvement through natural progression and added experience with one another.
That route would then send Grier on a search for the best offensive playmakers he could possibly find in free agency and the offseason.
The Dolphins will enjoy ample but not exorbitant salary cap space in 2021. Spotrac.com and Overthecap.com, the two leading websites tracking NFL cap space, estimate Miami will have between $26.7 million and $32.7 million in effective cap space.
The Dolphins can create perhaps $10 million more in space depending on their roster management decisions (cutting players or forcing pay cuts) but the fact is they cannot come close to the approximately $68 million the New York Jets will enjoy or even the approximately $60 million the New England Patriots will have.
The Dolphins can compete with practically anyone in draft pick resources. They own four picks in the first two rounds — Nos. 3 and 18 in the first round, and Nos. 36 and 50 in the second.
Only the Jacksonville Jaguars, with 11 draft picks including the first overall selection, have an obviously better draft chest.
It all means there are many issues and decisions looming. It will be a busy offseason dealing with the Dolphins offense.
This story was originally published January 4, 2021 at 3:43 PM.
