One smart thing Tua did to prepare. And ex-players react to Dolphins’ move; two hate it
A six-pack of Tua Tagovailoa notes on a day that three sources confirmed he will be the Miami Dolphins’ new starting quarterback, beginning Nov. 1 against the Los Angeles Rams at Hard Rock Stadium, following a Dolphins bye this weekend:
▪ How diligent has Tagovailoa been in preparing for this day?
Tagovailoa has been consulting not only with the offensive staff and personnel, but defensive players, too.
“He actually comes around and asks the defensive guys how he can get better,” linebacker Jerome Baker said recently. “Even in his first few weeks, he was coming into the defensive rooms and asking us how to see this or how to do that.”
Baker advised him to attempt any throw he thinks he can make because “if it’s going to help you, it’s going to help us. Just do whatever you can to get better. In practice, that’s your time to really [experiment], just try to do things that you normally wouldn’t do. He’s a smart guy.”
Meanwhile, Baker told “Drinks with Binks” on Tuesday that he found out about the quarterback change via Instagram and then texted Tagovailoa.
“It was coming eventually,” he told host Julie Stewart Binks. “We’re sitting at 3-3....We’re going in the right direction. The question is: Why not now? Anybody in our facility, if you watch Tua at practice, he slings it. He gets the job done. I’m really excited to see him flourish and come into his own.
“We all are confident in him. ... He does it all. Not just physically on the field, but his mental capacity -- how he handles the game --- is remarkable as a rookie just to see it. You are so proud of him, how he goes about learning, how he works. You’re happy for a guy like that to get an opportunity.”
He said when Dolphins defenders blitzed him in training camp, “we were throwing a lot of different looks. Most guys would go into a shell and question themselves. He stepped up and handled it the right way.”
(Baker’s interview with Binks will air at 8 p.m. Friday on Fubo Sports Network.)
Tagovailoa will need to contend with Rams All-Pro defensive lineman Aaron Donald in his first NFL start. Donald’s advice to him?
“Hold the ball,” Donald cracked Tuesday to SI.com, laughing. “Don’t do too much running. Take them sacks.”
▪ Though Dolphins players were surprised by the timing — the team had not been told of the quarterback change when the news leaked — reaction conveyed Tuesday by a few Dolphins players was positive, despite the affection and high regard internally for Ryan Fitzpatrick.
Two players said Tagovailoa has looked good in practice, and one expressed excitement about the transition. One conveyed that Tagovailoa has a cannon for an arm, and it will be interesting to see if the vertical passing game becomes a bigger component of Miami’s attack.
Teammates like Tagovailoa and his infectious personality; they were impressed when he reached out to many of them after the draft to introduce himself.
A team source said the bye was a natural time to make the change.
Tagovailoa, speaking to reporters Sunday for the first time since August, made clear that “I’m very fortunate to have a mentor like [Ryan Fitzpatrick]; he’s been supportive the entire time. Good drive, bad drive, he comes to the sideline and just talks through his process with why he did some things.”
▪ In the wake of Miami’s QB change leaking, reaction from prominent former players ran the gamut on Tuesday.
Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre, on Sirius XM radio: “Little bit surprised. Fitzpatrick has played exceptionally well. I don’t know him personally, but guys seem to rally around him and love him. He hasn’t done anything to lose the spot. Tua seems like an awesome guy. We know he can play. I’m happy for him. From an emotional perspective, I’m all for Tua. From the business of winning, Fitzpatrick has done a heck of a job.”
Another former NFL QB MVP, Kurt Warner, tweeted: “I know what my man #FitzMagic is feeling, in 04 w/ NYG we were playoff team after 9 games (& i wasn’t playing as well as Fitz) when they moved 2 @EliManning — sucked 4 me — but I knew it wasn’t about that season but the future & I’d have to say it worked out pretty well 4 Gmen!”
ESPN analyst and former Cowboys defender Marcus Spears: “I love it. I was surprised like everybody else. I wanted to see Tua the first week of the season.”
Among those who loathed the move: ESPN studio analyst and former NFL backup QB Dan Orlovsky.
“I hate this decision,” Orlovsky said. “Yes the Dolphins offensive line is better than last year, but a massive reason why is how fast Fitz gets the ball out. Fitz is getting the ball out in 2.4 seconds, third fastest in the NFL.
“There’s nothing the Dolphins learned about Tua’s ability to get the ball out of his hands fast enough in an NFL game by watching practice. You know who balls in practice? Every backup quarterback. He has to learn to throw the football away. That is going to be an issue with a bad offensive line. He hasn’t learned that.”
(Quick aside: I don’t agree that this is a bad offensive line, and Tagovailoa has told associates he’s aware he must throw the ball away more.)
“You cannot say we think we can win more with Tua when you have zero evidence of it, nor any reason to be clamoring for it,” Orlovsky said. “This is a poor decision.”
FS-1’s Marcellus Wiley, the former NFL defensive lineman, also bashed the decision: “If I’m one of the other 51 guys on this team, I’m thinking in this winning culture, this is the time you insert someone who you don’t know is ready for this moment?
“Think about how you’re sacrificing 51 others. What if Tua struggles and fails? You had a team that was rolling!”
▪ Before the Dolphins switched quarterbacks, even the former president of the NFL Players Association (former NFL cornerback Domonique Foxworth) had joined a chorus of ex-players who implored Miami to start Tagovailoa.
“We get too cute thinking the offensive line has to be perfect, the defense has to be perfect, the receiver has to be perfect,” Foxworth, now an ESPN analyst, said earlier this month.
“You get better getting on the field and experiencing it yourself. The championship window is when the quarterback is on the [four-year] rookie deal. Get him out there.”
▪ A sign of the rookie’s popularity: The audience size in Miami-Fort Lauderdale during the five minutes that Tagovailoa took the field in Sunday’s Dolphins-Jets game rose by about 32,000 households from the average rating for the game, despite the 24-0 score.
That suggests people who were not watching the game saw on Twitter that he was being inserted in the game and rushed to tune in.
During Tagovailoa’s appearance, 12.3 percent of Dade/Broward homes were tuned in — highest of the game, which averaged a 10.3 locally.
One local ratings point equals 16,000-plus homes.
▪ Quick stuff: Tagovailoa on Sunday became the first left-handed quarterback to throw a pass in an NFL game since Kellen Moore in January 2016. ... Dan Marino made his first start (and third appearance) in Miami’s sixth game of his rookie season. Tagovailoa will make his first start in Miami’s seventh game …
Tagovailoa’s first two starts will be against former No. 1 overall draft picks (the Rams’ Jared Goff and Arizona’s Kyler Murray). During the next seven weeks, he also is set to face the quarterback selected first in this past draft (Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow) and the one selected just after him, at No. 6 (the Chargers’ Justin Herbert)...
Betonline.com lowered the Dolphins’ odds of winning the AFC from 100 to 1 to 75 to 1, but a spokesman said that had nothing to do with Tagovailoa and instead was a byproduct of how the Buffalo Bills looked in a loss to Kansas City on Monday.
Here’s our Tuesday news story (from me, Adam Beasley and Armando Salguero) on the decision to start Tua Tagovailoa.
Here my Tuesday Dolphins piece with other news today, including a looming decision on the offensive line.
Here’s my Tuesday Marlins 6-pack, with surprising news on the 2021 rotation and the back story on the Michael Hill departure.
This story was originally published October 20, 2020 at 5:16 PM.
