A lot had been made this offseason of the “new” Tua Tagovailoa – a more vocal quarterback than he had been in his first four seasons with the Miami Dolphins.
an example of that and returned to the field to rally for a 20-17 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars.
“It was a cool moment,” Miami coach Mike McDaniel said, “because it was genuine and it was not anything but constructive. There are details that lead to execution in terms of how we are organized and communicate who’s in the huddle, how those players go from the huddle to the line of scrimmage, and just executing the nuances of our job that, I guess at the time, he definitely felt that there were several guys that were loose there. I couldn’t deny that at all, and I was really pumped to hear him constructively lead.
“It wasn’t ‘Let’s win’ or ‘Let’s make plays.’ It was ‘Let’s adhere to our standard,’ which is what a captain and a franchise quarterback has to be that voice, so it was cool to have him beat me to the punch.”
The Dolphins trailed 17-7 at halftime, with Miami’s touchdown coming with 64 seconds left in the second quarter. The Dolphins’ previous four possessions had included two punts and two fourth-down failures.
“There’s just a lot of minutia for a lot of us,” Tagovailoa said, “because there’s a lot of personnel that guys got to hear who’s who, who’s where, and so it’s just calling it fast and then they got to go out and line up, and we only have about 10 seconds to do all these motions, so it’s a lot of that that we kind of collectively came to – I kind of addressed it to the entire offense with the coaches included.”
An 80-yard touchdown pass from Tagovailoa to wide receiver Tyreek Hill triggered Miami’s comeback.
The touchdown pass came on the first snap after Miami safety Jevon Holland punched the football away from Jacksonville running back Travis Etienne just short of the goal line. On the next snap, Tagovailoa connected with Hill, and instead of trailing 24-7, the Dolphins trailed 17-14 with 2:08 left in the third quarter.
“That was very important, I would say,” Tagovailoa said about Holland’s play. “A huge momentum swing.”
Miami kicker Jason Sanders got three chances at field goals in the fourth quarter, and he made two, including a 52-yarder as time ran out.
“I think it tells you early on a lot about our team,” Tagovailoa said of the comeback, “and a lot of what we’ve tried to ingrain in each other with the relationships we’ve been building on the field, off the field. It’s just collectively ‘I got your back, you got our back.’
“We’re not shying away from what we know is true. We’re down 14. That’s what it is. What are we going to do? Nobody else can change that but us.”
