Miami Dolphins fans spent three full games, all victories, giddily appreciating Tua Tagovailoa, and with reason to, like never before.
The three games since, all losses, should have that appreciation only growing in his absence as we have seen the sharp downturn and struggles at quarterback without him.
Next Sunday night this franchise will stage its official celebration of the 1972 Perfect Season Dolphins, 50 years later. It will also be a night to cheer the return from concussion of a healthy Tagovailoa, who has been nothing but maligned and doubted his first two seasons but now is earning the respect — and even the plain benefit of doubt — that had been denied him.
What’s that they say about absence and the heart?
The Dolphins fell at home, 24-16, to the Minnesota Vikings Sunday in a game that was mostly boring, forgettable — and winnable. It was not won largely because backup quarterbacks Teddy Bridgewater and Skylar Thompson, separately and by combination, were not good enough.
The whole bloody afternoon had the desperate effect of an emergency get-well card for Tagovailoa.
Miami’s defense was mostly good, at least until being gouged for a 53-yard Dalvin Cook touchdown run late that put the game away.
Pin this loss on the offense, and mostly on the men taking the snaps to lead it. Thompson, who started but left with a thumb injury, and Bridgewater, together completed 30 of 47 passes, with 385 passing yards from playing from behind somehow only producing two touchdowns. Bridgewater’s first interception led to a Vikes field goal. There would be a second pick from him.
Thus ended Miami’s eight-game home winning streak with a thud as the Dolphins, once the talk of the NFL when Tua was, too, fell to 3-3.
It was the third straight game in which Miami ended the game with a different quarterback than who started.
“The bad luck in the quarterback room,” as Bridgewater called it.
“Unique to my NFL career,” said coach Mike McDaniel
Thompson last week and Bridgewater Sunday played after a week with few practice reps.
McDaniel was accepting no excuses, not even that one.
“You can look at it as difficult or a reason for x-y-z; I challenge the guys not to,” said the coach. “When you are minus-three [on turnovers], you better be pretty epic in other ways. We didn’t have that this week.”
They had 12 catches for 177 yards from Tyreek Hill. Still not enough.
Lots of offense not equating to points happens when you throw two interceptions, lose a fumble, have 10 penalties, convert only four of 14 third downs, and take six sacks.
The struggling was not all on the QBs.
In one horrific early sequence Miami had five offensive penalties in a single series, most in any one series by any team this season. False start. Ineligible man downfield. Holding. Offensive pass interference. Another hold.
Big plays were nullified and a likely touchdown erased. A small, sad parade of utter incompetence.
Later, a costly Jaylen Waddle fumble aborted a promising drive.
A confession:
It was 11:07 a.m. Sunday in the Dolphins pressbox at Hard Rock Stadium, almost two hours before kickoff, when I typed the following, the quotes used for emphasis. There were witnesses. This was so it would not appear like second-guessing after the game should the topic arise anew:
“Teddy Bridgewater should be the staring quarterback today for Miami ahead of Skylar Thompson,” I wrote.
Bridgewater had had a limited week of preparation leading up to the Vikings game, not out of concussion protocol and formally cleared to play until Saturday. No matter. I trusted the veteran, experienced Bridgewater more than I trusted Thompson, a green rookie, and was rather surprised coach Mike McDaniel did not, too.
Veterans start all the time despite limited reps during the week. Yet Bridgewater, with 64 career NFL starts in his pocket, needed more practice time?
Bridgewater left last week’s loss after only one play with a concussion-that-wasn’t-really. He’d have been pumped to start Sunday — especially against Minnesota, his former team. When the Vikes last played in Miami in 2014, it was Teddy B., then a rookie, in purple.
Bridgewater was a victim of the NFL’s suddenly more stringent concussion policy, one ironically instituted because of the handling of Tagovailoa’s concussion. It’s a stricter policy well-intended, but not without flaws. Last week a spotter at the game dubiously judged Bridgewater to have stumbled, even though video did not support such a conclusion. Under the newly strengthened protocols, the alleged stumble was enough to rule Bridgewater had met the criteria for ataxia (impaired coordination) and so was immediately prevented from returning to the game.
The QB never showed any symptoms of a concussion and passed every test given him during that game and throughout the coming week. Yet this new, institutionalized erring on the side of caution led to Bridgewater, though healthy, not starting Sunday.
It needn’t have, and should not have, I thought.
I was wrong.
Because it didn’t much matter.
Thompson hasn’t shown he is comfortably ready for game action.
Bridgewater isn’t super-accurate, or especially strong-armed ,or mobile. Takes way too many sacks.
Neither is the quarterback we have seen Tua blossom to become, the one leading the NFL in passer rating when he left hurt.
It is important to note the Dolphins have not stopped being the good team we saw at 3-0.
What they became was a team desperately missing, and needing back, its starting quarterback.
