Miami Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa speaks after loss to Indianapolis Colts.
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Miami Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa speaks after loss to Indianapolis Colts.
The Miami Dolphins were thoroughly embarrassed on the road on Sunday by the Indianapolis Colts 33-8. While Daniel Jones was sharp and effective for the Colts, the Dolphins’ quarterback was not. Tua Tagovailoa was 14-23 for 114 yards, one touchdown pass and two interceptions. He was also sacked three times for 13 yards.
In case you don’t watch a lot of NFL football, that’s terrible. Especially when your one touchdown pass came with 6:21 left in the fourth quarter while you were already down 30-0.
While Tua did add to his post-game criticism of the team’s offense, “this also goes for me,” he did go ahead and criticize the team’s offense anyway. He didn’t throw anyone under the bus, but this isn’t what Dolphins’ fans wanted to hear following the pasting in Indianapolis.
“I’m definitely curious to see, ‘I came in on Tuesday, I seen these guys on Tuesday last week. I want to see if the same guys are watching film on Tuesday’, I want to see how everyone goes about their process,” Tagovailoa said.
I’ll bet there are plenty of people associated with the Dolphins who would like to see how you go about your process.
Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel says it’s not all on Tua Tagovailoa
Dolphins’ head coach Mike McDaniel said after the beat down that this game was not all on Tagovailoa. He’s right, but we all know about too much of the credit, too much of the blame. In the case of today’s game? It’s the blame.
“It was something that was left to be desired,” McDaniel said of Tagovailoa’s game. “It’s definitely not all on him. There’s just throws that I know he makes nine times out of 10, and he didn’t make them today. But that being said, it’s hard to play quarterback when you have surprise pressures … or you have people coming out the huddle the wrong way when they had been nailing it for a week-plus.”
It was certainly a team effort, but Tua really needs to find the nearest mirror in the locker room.
“There’s too many people that failed at the execution of their jobs for him to even have any extra on his (Tagovailoa’s) shoulders,” McDaniel said. “I would say that the rest of the team was not good enough to win football games in the National Football League.”
Too many mistakes by the Miami Dolphins today
Tua threw two picks and lost a fumble. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t move the offense at all on Sunday, he was also handing the ball to the Colts every chance he got. McDaniel says the turnovers killed them, but that would kinda sorta be pointing the finger right back at Tua, wouldn’t it?
“When you’re minus-three plus a turnover on downs, you run into the kicker, across the board, that’s not a [winning] formula,” McDaniel said. “That formula is for failure and nothing else. I think there was a lot of preparation for Week 1, and I don’t think it looked it. What does that mean? It means the guys let Week 1 and the bells and whistles of the season starting get the best of them. My job is to prevent that. I did my best, not good enough.”
The Dolphins better figure out something quickly at quarterback. And, it’s going to have to be Tua because the options of Zach Wilson and Quinn Ewers behind him will be way worse.