Tua Tagovailoa has been benched, having quite possibly played his last game with the Dolphins. While his position as the team’s emergency-only quarterback is largely symbolic—with his money for next season already guaranteed, it makes no difference whether he gets injured or not—the players in front of Tagovailoa tell a more important story.
Starting against the Bengals this weekend is the team’s 2025 seventh-round pick, Quinn Ewers, and backing up Ewers is Zach Wilson, a reclamation project that never quite got off the ground. While Wilson’s athleticism and arm talent were initially viewed as an ideal fit for the boot-heavy Shanahan-style offense, Wilson has struggled to grasp the timing and rhythms of the NFL, either in a Shanahan scheme or with Sean Payton the year prior. While he expressed his frustration with not starting this weekend, it’s clear that, having not wedged his way into the conversation at any point during Tagovailoa’s worst season in years, Wilson was not more than a placefiller on this roster.
