For many teams, the joint practices preceding preseason games are more important than the preseason games. For the Dolphins, an important development happened in joint practice with the Bears two days before their mutual preseason opener.
Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa did not perform well. He had plenty of misfires, and a whopping three interceptions.
After Sunday’s game in Chicago, Tagovailoa was asked about the showing.
“Results based, bad,” Tagovailoa said. “But then within the process, I think those are good days to have, especially as you’re starting training camp. You go through training camp with the team and then you face another team. They coach a little different, do things a little different. So, it’s sticking with the fundamentals and technique that you do every day. That’s all it was.”
He’s right, to an extent. Training camp is the time to make mistakes. But the joint practice didn’t happen on day one or two. It was the culmination of two weeks of practice.
Tagovailoa, who played in the preseason opener for the fist time since 2021, disagreed with the notion that he started the game in order to “get the bad taste of Friday” out of their mouths.
“I wouldn’t say any of the reason behind me playing today was behind Friday’s practice,” Tagovailoa said. “I wouldn’t say that. This was solely based on [coach Mike McDaniel’s] decision, what he wanted from the starters, that we all were going to have one series. Whether [we] liked that series or not. That was it. That was boss man’s decision.”
The series went well, until it didn’t. The 15-play effort ended with four straight runs after first-and-goal from the eight. Still, Tua looked like his normal self for the entirety of the drive — which sounds a lot better than how he looked on Friday.