Party, meet hangover. Playoff hopes over for Tua, Miami Dolphins with 34-3 loss at Titans | Opinion
The old year ended record-setting great for the Miami Dolphins. It ended like a party. The new year began like the hangover, the hurt, the result befitting a rainy, see-your-breath day in Nashville when the wintry temperature dipped into the 30s.
The gloom for Miami was in the standings. Sunday’s humbling 34-3 loss to the Tennessee Titans — and longtime former quarterback Ryan Tannehill — put the Fins level at 8-8 and no longer in playoff control entering next week’s season finale at home against rival New England.
Miami was officially eliminated from playoff contention later Sunday when the Los Angeles Chargers won. Even with a Chargers loss, the Fins would have needed to beat the Patriots next week and then count on a ton help from other teams losing, other results falling just right. A prayer.
“This is the situation we’re in,” said tight end Mike Gesicki.
The Dolphins had won seven games in a row, the first team in NFL history to win seven straight after losing seven in a row in the same season, before Sunday hit like sobering reality.
“This group is going to stick together and prepare for another big game next week,” said coach Brian Flores. “I think our guys prepared the right way. The Titans are a good team. They had a good plan. We didn’t perform enough. That starts with me.”
The gloom was all over the field.
The game got away late and Miami’s run defense was run over for 200 yards (well, 198).
“We just kind of got beat up,” said defensive tackle Christian Wilkins.
Mostly, the gloom was there in a mistake-prone Tua Tagovailoa, who failed to lift his offense from ineptness with anything close to heroics or a spark. It was there, plain: The young QB drafted very high to specifically (as a starting point) be better than Tannehill, failing to out-perform him in their first head-to-head meeting.
Tagovailoa had led the seven-game win streak in many ways, especially with his improved accuracy, chipping away little by little at the doubts and concerns that have chased him for two seasons.
Sunday we saw an ordinary quarterback, a sloppy one, one whose ball security and decision-making volunteered themselves into question.
“They had the same elements we did,” Flores said of the conditions. “We’ve got to do a better job of protecting the ball. That’s always our No. 1 priority.”
Tagovailoa had a chance, in his 20th start, to top a 70 percent completion for the 10th time and become the first young QB ever to do so in that span to begin a career.
Instead he was an inaccurate 18-for-38 for 205 yards, failing to reach the end zone even once.
He took a third-down sack early in the game, not seeing a wide-open DeVante Parker. Another ill-time sack (he took four) cost Miami a field goal. He lost a fumble at the Dolphins’ 14 when the ball slipped from his hand as he tried to throw. Later he lost the ball on a fumbled snap but Duke Johnson luckily recovered.
Tagovailoa fumbled three times in all, losing one. There is no excuse. Not a hard football or cold-numb fingers. Not when ball security has become a recurring issue. Tua takes too many sacks. Then there was the late interception, fitting punctuation to his rough day.
“It played somewhat of a role,” Tagovailoa said of the bitter-cold weather. “But at the end of the day you’ve got to execute.”
Injury-proneness used to be our big concern about Tagovailoa. Carelessness with the ball has taken over that dubious distinction.
After a late fourth-and-2 incompletion late Sunday the TV cameras caught Tagovailoa on the sideline, visibly upset. The emotion was good to see. Not much else was from him on this day.
The overriding issue, bigger than Sunday’s loss, bigger even than it snatching playoff hope from Miami, is this:
This franchise and its fans enter the final game of Tagovailoa’s second season not yet certain if he is The Man moving forward, the future, a quarterback of enough promise to commit to and build around.
Nobody knows. Not even the people who drafted him with such high hopes.
And the juxtaposition was hard to miss as we watched Tannehill celebrating in a different uniform in a different home stadium.
The Dolphins spent seven seasons investing in Tannehill as the answer before at long last deciding he was not, deciding they needed to be better at the one essential position.
We are nearly two seasons in now on Tua Tagovailoa.
And the biggest concern today for everybody who cares about the Dolphins — it isn’t missing the playoffs again.
It is still not knowing yet about Tua Tagovailoa.
“I’ve heard that since the day I’ve been here,” said the QB of the doubts. “I can only control what I can control.”
Sunday, he didn’t control much. Not the Titans’ defense. Not his own offense. Not himself.
And in Miami, the name Deshaun Watson was trending on Twitter after the game, the merry-go-round spinning anew.
There is that continuing joust about Tua Tagovailoa, quarterback, that ebb and flow between hopefulness and worry.
It is the not being sure.
This story was originally published January 2, 2022 at 4:07 PM.
