The Dolphins continue to look inept without Tua Tagovailoa.
The hits just keep on coming for the Miami Dolphins. With their latest loss to the Tennessee Titans on Monday Night Football, it’s the third straight week the Dolphins look entirely dependent on starting quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.
While most of the other good-to-great teams seem to be able to win games and put points on the board with a backup quarterback, the Dolphins can’t even fathom that at this point.
The Dolphins had a golden opportunity to get back on track against one of the worst teams in the league, who also lost their quarterback during the game and still looked outmatched. Not on both sides, just one. Enough so that the other side eventually got worn out and looked bad in a cascading effect.
I usually embrace the “team loss” philosophy because football is a team sport and no one play can lose you the game, but when the offense can’t get it going until right before time expires, the defense has no chance.
The Dolphins went 2-for-12 on third down (16.7%) and 1-for-3 on fourth down (33.3%). That’s all you need to know about this game. The offense couldn’t convert, and the defense finally gave out.
In total, the Dolphins generated thirteen first downs, 184 yards of total offense, and managed to score a touchdown with 3:36 left in the game. At that point, the Titans defense was letting them burn the clock out and kept everything in front of them. The offense was the same sinking ship it was under Skylar Thompson the week before.
The question now is, who’s to blame?
From the Top Down
If we look at the game at a micro level, I’m sure we could point out everyone’s mistakes on both sides of the ball, more so on offense. Is that fair? Were they set up for success through gameplan or roster build? My answer to both is no.
Looking at the Dolphins gameplan, and roster from a macro level, I can’t find anyone who deserves more blame for this loss than the guys at the top, meaning general manager Chris Grier and head coach Mike McDaniel.
Speaking toward the roster build, there were glaring holes due to players exported through free agency. The first was the whole interior of the offensive line. Grier, to his credit filled one of those spots with Aaron Brewer, who’s been solid but did nothing for either guard position.
The Dolphins could’ve addressed this issue with one or two of their first two picks, but they instead went with a “future” franchise left tackle, and a pass rusher, fourth on the depth chart with everyone healthy who has yet to make an impact.
The Dolphins are now 24th (97.8) in rushing yards per game, fee falling from 6th (135.8) in 2023. They’re a worse pass-blocking unit so the ground game isn’t something the offense can lean on when they go to a backup quarterback. 3.7 yards per carry will not get it done nor keep opposing defenses from pinning their ears back. No threat equals a one-dimensional offense, and they don’t put up points or win games, as we have seen.
The last egregious decision both Grier and McDaniel are tied together to is not upgrading their backup quarterback. Across the league, backups have been able to come in and keep the engine running and churn out wins. Not the Dolphins. Their backups give the offense zero juice and can’t run the offense. At this point, running a wild cat offense may be just as effective, or even more so.
I do want to point at the drops from Jaylen Waddle late and Tyreek Hill early, but man, they were let down by Tyler Huntley. Hill had three or four times where he was open deep, and wasn’t seen or was under/overthrown. He was fuming on the sideline, and I can’t blame him though the gameplan is more of the culprit than the roster in its entirety is, so come on down, Mike McDaniel.
McDaniel created a beautiful, innovative system that took the league by storm over the last two years and it’s been an absolute show for Dolphins fans. The mistake he made is the system is set up for one person, Tua Tagovailoa.
Not that it’s a specific system based on physical attributes, it’s a system where you have to be able to know where everyone is, control all the pre-snap motions, read the defense pre and post-snap, and then make the correct read and throw. It’s a ton to remember and process at NFL speed. In my eyes, only a handful of quarterbacks in the league can run it, and only one is on the Dolphins roster.
The Dolphins have a second quarterback who’s been in the system as long as Tagovailoa has in Skylar Thompson, but it proved to be too complicated of a system for him to run. Grier and McDaniel went all in on Thompson as the backup knowing Tagovailoa’s injury history and that gamble failed miserably.
When they brought in Tyler Huntley, they had him run practically the same offense despite him being in Miami for less than a month which resulted in a bunch of penalties and little to no offense. Square peg, meet round hole.
Who’s to Blame?
I said it at the beginning, and I’ll say it here in the end. This loss isn’t on the players. This loss is wholly on the head coach, Mike McDaniel, who set the offense up for failure, and general manager Chris Grier, who built an injury-plagued roster with an absolute whiff at the backup quarterback position playing behind an injury-prone quarterback.
I learned two things on Monday night. Chris Grier’s roster may never see a fully healthy run of games, and Tua Tagovailoa is the system. Either way, the Dolphins are destined for failure with just one injury, and that cannot be forgiven.
Let us know in the comments who should shoulder the blame for the loss to the Tennessee Titans.
