Miami Dolphins defense dominates Rams, makes it easy for Tua in QB’s first NFL start | Opinion
From a nightmare arose a dream.
From a most inauspicious beginning to Tua Tagovailoa’s first NFL start on Sunday bloomed a Miami Dolphins defensive performance that surely has Dolfans’ hopes high today -- that feeling of a future coming into view.
Tua needed help. A lift. The rookie’s very first dropback to pass as a starter saw the football jarred from his hand, his fumble quickly converted into a 7-0 Los Angeles Rams lead at Hard Rock Stadium.
Miami’s next two possessions resulted in punts. The baptism of Tagovailoa, the high-drafted quarterback out of Alabama, was not looking like the stuff of fairy tales.
That was when something happened. It was as if the team surrounded the kid QB and said, “We got you. We got this.”
That was when the defense and special teams stepped up to lift all of the pressure off Tagovailoa’s shoulders, allowing him to settle in, settle down and begin helping himself in what would be a 28-17 Miami win.
Defensive end Christian Wilkins intercepted Jared Goff to give Tua a short field and a quick 3-yard scoring pass to DeVante Parker to even the score, the rookie clutching the ball he threw as he smiled to the sideline. Ones were wild. Miami’s No. 1 draft pick, wearing uniform No. 1, had thrown NFL touchdown No. 1 on the date 11/1.
It was from the sideline then that Tua enjoyed his first lead as a pro.
Boom. Emmanuel Ogbah stripped Goff of the football and Andrew Van Ginkel carried it 78 yards for a touchdown.
Boom. Jakeem Grant returned a punt a Fins-record 88 yards for another score.
Boom. Shaq Lawson forced another Goff fumble and Kyle Van Noy brought it 28 yards to the Rams 1, setting up a 28-7 lead.
L.A. led Miami in the first half by 52-22 in offensive plays, 224-54 in yards and 17-5 in first downs -- because those big plays on defense and special teams were carrying the day, and carrying Tua Tagovailoa. The rookie was 5-for-11 for 34 yards in his first two quarters. And that was all that was needed.
The tsunami of attention chasing Tua into his first career start was understandable, but lost in it is this:
The Dolphins have become a pretty good team.
And Miami’s defense has become really good.
This didn’t all happen Sunday. It’s been coming. This is not a tiny sample. This is five games now, nearly a third of a season.
Miami was third in the entire NFL in scoring defense, and that was before Sunday.
Miami just won a third game in a row and a fourth in the past five. The only loss in that stretch was to then-unbeaten Seattle and MVP frontrunner Russell Wilson.
Tua was not thrown into a struggling mess. He was taking over a team suddenly thinking playoffs.
Yet the onus was squarely on coach Brian Flores to be made to look right on the timing of his QB switch, and on Tua to make that happen. Benched Ryan Fitzpatrick saying he was surprised and “heartbroken” by the move only added to that onus.
Miami had won two in a row and three of the past four with the wise old hand of Fitzpatrick. Was now the time to turn to a raw rookie?
Miami was facing an elite pass rush in the Rams Sunday and the most feared pocket destroyer of all in Aaron Donald. Was now the time to push Tua from the nest and say, “Fly”?
ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported a factor in Miami deploying Tua now was the Dolphins holding Houston’s No. 1 pick in the 2021 draft via the Laremy Tunsil trade. The Texans at 1-6 entering Sunday were certainly in the running to gift Miami a very high pick. (Only the Stinkin’ Jets were winless).
Not stated in that report but pretty obvious: Miami needed to know, clearly, this season, if Tua is the real deal moving forward, the long-term answer -- or top-drafting another QB in ‘21 might be in play.
Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence, still seen as the next overall No. 1 pick despite his current COVID test-positive, heads a quarterback-rich ‘21 draft that also includes Ohio State’s Justin Fields and North Dakota’s highly touted gem, Trey Lance.
That the Dolphins might be considering such a contingency plan after watching Tua throw all of two passes before Sunday is either panicked thinking or impressive due diligence, depending on one’s perspective.
In either case it is a situation borne of the times. In pandemic 2020 Miami was robbed of seeing Tagovailoa in any preseason games. He also is one year removed from serious hip surgery.
These are reasons the Fins brass thought it time to start getting a tangible read on exactly what it has in this kid out of Alabama.
Thirty-seven years and three weeks earlier, on October 9, 1983 at the Orange Bowl, rookie Dan Marino started for the first time. Though he threw two interceptions and the Fins lost narrowly to the Bills, Marino was scintillating-good, completing 19 of 29 passes for 322 yards and three touchdowns -- including 48- and 63-yard bombs.
Like Tua is now, Marino was then 22. It was the sixth game of the season. What was coach Don Shula thinking as he watched his new star unleashed that day?
“Why’d I wait so long!?” he said with a grin.
Tagovailoa’s was the most anticipated start by any Dolphins rookie in all of those 37 years since Marino introduced himself on what would be an historic, record-setting, Hall of Fame-bound career.
Tua was the 22nd different Miami quarterback to start a game since Marino retired after the 1999 season.
Marino was at Sunday’s game, behind a light blue proetctiuve mask in pandemic 2020, giving a thumbs-up from his suite as his latest successor tossed his maiden touchdown.
As the team’s highest-drafted QB since Bob Griese in 1967, Dolfan hopes are that Tagovailoa will be the best since Marino.
That is the expectation Tua inherits. Not less.
The new era began Sunday with Tagovailoa far from matching the gaudy numbers from Marino’s first start in ’83. Frankly, the offense stunk. Do not judge too harsh Tua’s maiden voyage, but much more will be needed, for sure.
But the defense was big, and the win was big, and so does the future of this franchise look big for the first time in a long time.
Tua didn’t carry the team in his first start. He was along for the ride.
No matter.
This looks like a team whose future is getting here fast.
This story was originally published November 1, 2020 at 4:25 PM.
