The Miami Dolphins trust Tua Tagovailoa enough to let him start and play deep into games.
But do they trust him to make the same downfield throws that Ryan Fitzpatrick, in a relief role, made to rally them to victory Saturday in Las Vegas?
That’s the Dolphins’ No. 1 issue on offense as they prepare for Sunday’s season-defining game against the Bills, who have scored 30 or more points in all but two of their past seven games.
So Gailey was asked point-blank Tuesday: What is your reaction to those on the outside who say you don’t have the same level of confidence in Tagovailoa as you do in Fitzpatrick?
“You have the game plan set up that you go into it with, and you’re in a different mode when you get to the end there,” Gailey responded. “You’re in a totally different mode. It is different because of the situations, not because of the players.”
And what was the game plan the Dolphins had going into the game against the Raiders, who held Tagovailoa to just 45 passing yards in the first half Saturday?
“We’ve been a team that’s tried to be 9-, 10-, 11-, 12-play drives, run the football, play-action pass, control the time on the clock,” Gailey continued. “And that’s the situation that we found with Tua in the ballgame. Plus, you’re missing some receivers from time to time and that has something to do with it. So, a lot of that goes into decision-making about how the game is being called and what kind of plays we run.”
But here’s the reality: The Dolphins trailed by just a field goal with nearly 10 minutes left on the clock when Brian Flores benched Tagovailoa for Fitzpatrick Saturday. They still could have run the ball, thrown the dump-offs that Tagovailoa threw in the first half, and won the game.
Instead Fitzpatrick threw two deep passes on that drive — which were two more than Tagovailoa threw in his nine possessions Saturday night.
It’s part of the reason why Fitzpatrick averaged 10 more yards per pass attempt than Tagovailoa Saturday, and why on the season he leads in that category by a yard and a half over his young teammate.
Still, Gailey is right about the team’s general offensive philosophy. Neither Fitzpatrick nor Tagovailoa has aired it out deep much this season. Fitzpatrick ranks 24th among NFL quarterbacks in average intended air yards (which measures how far behind the line of scrimmage passes travel in the air), according to NFL Next Gen Stats, while Tagovailoa ranks 27th. Both average under 8 air-distance yards per pass attempt.
“I really don’t think that it’s one guy’s better to do this or one guy or anything like that,” said Dolphins tight end Mike Gesicki. “It’s really not what it is. The game and defenses just present different things or it’s just how the flow of the game kind of goes. Obviously Fitz got in there and made some big plays for us. Some of them were vertical — he hit me down the field — but another one was just Myles [Gaskin] making a great play.”
The Dolphins’ quarterback dynamic — in which Tagovailoa is the starter, but not necessarily the closer — is delicate and could wreck the chemistry of a lesser team. But the Dolphins are making it work because Flores has the respect and trust of his players, and because Tagovailoa and Fitzpatrick are both OK, at least publicly, with the situation.
“I think that the whole team has done a great job and honestly at the end of the day, it’s not up to us and it’s not up to honestly anybody besides [Flores],” Gesicki said. “The only people it should really affect, if that’s the right word here, is Fitz and Tua. And they handle it great. You always see Fitz helping out Tua, Tua supporting Fitz, Fitz supporting Tua, however you want to do it. So I think that they’ve done a great job with it and just kind of understand each other’s roles and like I said a bunch of times, just making the most of opportunities when they present themselves.”
Beasley writes for the Miami Herald