Benching Tua Was the Wrong Move
Sunday the Miami Dolphins had a very disappointing loss to the Denver Broncos. They struggled to move the ball on offense and they couldn’t stop Denver on defense. The most disappointing thing from the game though was the benching of the Dolphins rookie quarterback and I believe benching Tua was the wrong move to make.
Through three quarters the Miami Dolphins only had one drive over 50 yards and that led to a field goal. Rookie Tua Tagovailoa was under duress all afternoon and got sacked 6 times. He couldn’t get into a rhythm at all the entire game. Head Coach Brian Flores decided to bench him in favor of Ryan Fitzpatrick to give the offense a spark in the fourth quarter. To Fitzpatrick’s credit, he did provide a spark and put the Dolphins in position to potentially tie the game and ended up throwing a game deciding interception.
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I didn’t agree with the decision made by Brian Flores to bench Tagovailoa because he is a rookie and he’s going to have good days and bad days. On Sunday it was a bad day, but you should let him try to play himself out of it. When Flores decided to bench Fitzpatrick, he had to know Tagovailoa would go through a learning curve, but when you made the move the thinking had to be the future is now so why bench him during a bad outing? I get it the Dolphins are in a playoff race, but you can learn a little bit about your young quarterback through adversity and during a tough game. You don’t need him looking over his shoulder the next time he has a bad outing, or a bad drive, or a bad pass.
When Fitzpatrick was the starting quarterback the offense was moving and in rhythm but drives too often stalled out or ended in a turnover. Now you want to bench your new quarterback because you needed a spark? The rest of the year now if Tagovailoa struggles, people are going to wonder if he is going to get benched or if Flores will go back to Fitzpatrick as the starter. That’s a question as a head coach you don’t want to have to answer week after week if this happens.
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Brian Flores created a controversy whether that was his intention or not. If you change quarterbacks and go back forth it could divide your team potentially. Flores is a performance-driven coach and if you aren’t performing you won’t play, but this is different because it’s the quarterback position you don’t want it to be the topic of conversation each and every day moving forward.
Lots of young quarterbacks have struggled and go through the motions. Peyton Manning in his first 3 games threw 13 interceptions. Tagovailoa hasn’t thrown an interception yet in 4 games, but yesterday was the first game he struggled. I’m not trying to compare the two, but Manning played through horrible games was allowed to work it out and we need to see that from Tagovailoa. Maybe being bench will send a message to him if you don’t perform well you go to the bench. It’s also possible Tagovailoa could look over his shoulder and it could affect him. We will know more next Sunday against the New York Jets, but I’d like to see him try to work out of his struggles the next time he is in a situation like this.
I love Tua and am a huge fan of his, but It was definitely the right move, almost worked too. What do you mean “if” they were in a playoff race? They win that game and they are 7-3 and tied for first place. Tua will bounce back, he just didn’t have it and wasn’t handling the pressure well that day. The more experienced Fitzmagic gave us the best chance for a comeback. Kudos to coach Flores for having the cajones to make that decision.