The Dolphins Can’t Pretend Tua’s Injury Cost Them the Season Anymore
Credit: Mark Konezny-Imagn Images
With the Dolphins dropping to 2-6 after a 30-27 loss to the Buffalo Bills, the grieving process can officially start in Miami Gardens. Or maybe it started weeks ago. Denial is the classic first stage of grief, and the Dolphins have held out hope that maybe, just maybe, things could turn around, just as soon as Tua Tagovailoa returned to the lineup.
Well, Tua’s been back for two weeks now, and he’s been about everything the Dolphins could have hoped for. In two weeks, he’s completed 80.3% of his 66 throws for 465 yards, three touchdowns, and no picks. Take his four starts and stretch them over a 17-game pace, and we’d be looking at a 4,000-yard, 20-touchdown season. Those might not be Peak Tua numbers, but it’s a reasonable performance from him.
In those four games, Miami is just 1-3. The games are a little closer, for sure, but it perfectly matches the 1-3 record when Tua was out with his concussion. This isn’t to put blame on the quarterback. Putting up 27 points at Buffalo isn’t a small feat, and shaking off five weeks of rust to put up 27 points against the Arizona Cardinals on a team that only scored 40 in four weeks without him is notable, as well.
What that 1-3 record does do, however, is put the lie to the idea that Miami was this team ready to take the next step, only to have the rug pulled from them in Week 2 after Tua’s concussion. That can’t be the excuse at the end of the season; these last two games are proof of that.
To use it would be to continue to live in denial.
The Cardinals were 3-4 heading into Miami’s Week 8 match-up with them, but the Dolphins were the team that needed the win more. Despite playing at home, the defense couldn’t keep a lid on Arizona’s passing attack as the Cards put up two touchdowns and a field goal on their final three drives.
And while the Bills are perhaps the best team in the AFC (Non-Chiefs Division), Sunday was the last stand of a team that was supposed to be able to hang with Buffalo this season. If the Bills dropped yesterday’s game, they’d still be three games ahead of the Phins and New York Jets in the loss column. Miami losing gave them the extra indignity of their nemesis driving the final nail in their coffin.
The Dolphins convinced themselves they were ready to take that next step and challenge the Buffaloes and Kansas Cities of the world for the AFC Crown. Even as they floundered without Tua, they convinced themselves they could be something like the Cincinnati Bengals, an underachieving team that was too good on-paper to not pull things together.
They don’t even get to be that. Who are they? They’re the Cleveland Browns, or maybe the Jacksonville Jaguars: A team with talent at important positions, but major flaws that turned a potential dream season into a nightmare.
Miami’s defensive renovations over the offseason couldn’t patch up the loss of star Christian Wilkins in free agency. They couldn’t fix last season’s special teams’ woes. The team poured nearly unprecedented financial resources into keeping an elite 1-2 receiver punch that could only muster 209 combined yards over two must-win contests.
These are problems that can’t be fixed by imagining how Tua could have squeaked out an extra win in the four weeks when he was on the shelf. And while Miami’s injury problems have run deeper than Tagovailoa — Bradley Chubb, Jaelan Phillips, Jevon Holland, Zach Sieler, and Raheem Mostert are a few of the impact players who’ve missed time, as well — those can’t excuse the sloppiness we’ve seen in Miami Gardens.
We had two weeks to believe that the Dolphins were a talented, well-versed-in-Mike-McDaniel’s-system QB away from being a competitive team. The results are in, now, and they point to the roster being more fundamentally broken than that. Fixing these issues will take more than running things back next season and praying Tua can stay in the lineup.
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