The day after Miami’s 2021 season ended and shortly after he had fired coach Brian Flores, Dolphins owner Stephen Ross gave a conditional vote of confidence to quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.
“I have a lot of confidence in Tua,” Ross said, “and I think the next head coach will work with him -- or whoever else. But I have a lot of confidence in him. I have watched him grow. I think he’s a fine young man, and he is, right now, the quarterback, and that will be dependent upon the new head coach.”
The new head coach, Mike McDaniel, embraced Tagovailoa unconditionally, and after the former Alabama All-American led the NFL in passing yards in 2023, Miami signed him to a four-year, $212.4 million contract extension.
A couple of weeks after that, Ross offered his outlook for the Dolphins in 2024: “We have a great roster, and I think everybody has great expectations. But, hey, it’s the old injury bug. You got to make sure that that doesn’t happen like last year. I think without that and we stay healthy, I think we’re certainly a contender for the Super Bowl.”
A Super Bowl contender ought to be able to win a postseason game, and Miami hasn’t done that since it defeated the Indianapolis Colts 23-17 on Dec. 30, 2000. Every other team in the NFL has at least one playoff win since then.
“I don’t think we shy away from it,” Dolphins general manager Chris Grier said last week about the playoff drought. “Mike has talked about it. For us, it’s always – again, every team wants to win the Super Bowl, and we’re no different.”
As the quarterback, Tagovailoa already was the focal point for ending the playoff futility. His big contract only magnified the expectation that he can get that job done.
“What Tua asks from himself on a day-to-day basis, his standard of how locked in he needs to be, it all starts with him,” McDaniel said last week. “And he’s really embraced that where there’s no days off when you’re in a situation where you’re the highest-paid employee. If you want to be on a good team, then you better bring everything that you can control or you should have nothing more than marginal expectations for your team at best if you don’t have that mindset on a daily basis and dictate the terms that you want your teammates to follow.
“I think that’s fair. That’s very natural. You’d have to be completely unaware not to expect it. External expectations will adjust, but I think it’s important that you focus on your internal expectations because that’s the best way to lend the most powerful results that, hopefully, satisfy all your friends, fans and every other person.”
