The yearly NFL post mortems are well and truly upon us!
Although the Miami Dolphins season did not end how they would have wanted; given their 2-6 start to the year, the team actually rallied fairly impressively to get to the final week of the season and still be in playoff contention.
Whilst that reality never came through, as the Denver Broncos demolished the Kansas City Chiefs‘ backups in a 38-0 rout, and the New York Jets beat the Dolphins 32-20, head coach Mike McDaniel’s job was secured as the team finished 8-9.
Tua Tagovailoa Has Struggled To Consistently Stay On The Field
However, the main concern of the season was the status of franchise quarterback, Tua Tagovailoa, who signed a 4 year, $214 million ($53.5 million APY) deal this past offseason. Tua played only 11 games this past season, missing over a month with his third concussion in 4 years during a Thursday night September game at Hard Rock Stadium.
And this was not the first time that the former FBS National Champion has missed significant time; Tua has missed at least 4 games in each of his 5 seasons in the league outside of the 2023 season, where the team went 11-6, including a total of 20 games in the past 5 years.
With the concussions and other physical injuries adding up, general manager, Chris Grier, had some strong words for his franchise QB, per Dolphins insider Marcel Louis – Jacques.
“He needs to be available. He needs to know how to protect himself … He understands that not being available after taking chances is not acceptable to us,” Grier said during his press conference on Tuesday.
Dolphins GM Makes Clear Statement On Tua’s Availability
Grier is making a clear allusion to this season’s concussion during Week 2 against the Bills, where Tagovailoa seemingly charged head first into – somewhat ironically – Buffalo safety, Damar Hamlin – who survived one of the scariest on-field incidents ever seen in the NFL back in 2022.
The Dolphins QB was subsequently carted off and did not return until Week 8 against the Arizona Cardinals, where they went on to lose 28-27 in a nail-biter of a game. And, as is well documented, this is not exactly the first time the former Alabama star has had issues regarding brain injuries
Two horrific concussions over the span of just five days kept Tagovailoa out for a month in 2022, and started to raise questions of retirement – questions that became far more serious this season after his latest injury.
Clearly it is difficult to attribute sole blame to a player for their physical injuries and ailments – especially something as brutal and difficult-to-control in the case of concussions, it is hard not to grasp where Grier is coming from, having seen his quarterback make little to no effort to protect himself from injury during the outing against Buffalo – particularly given his history.
When healthy, Tua has a strong record as a starter, going 38-24 in the regular season with a 97.9 passer rating and a better than 2:1 TD to INT ratio (100:44) – yet, the team is not built to withstand weeks or months at a time without their starting quarterback, even if many believe that he has physical and technical limitations playing the position.
