{"id":16299,"date":"2025-01-02T01:42:22","date_gmt":"2025-01-02T01:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=16299"},"modified":"2025-01-02T01:42:22","modified_gmt":"2025-01-02T01:42:22","slug":"breaking-it-appears-tuas-2024-season-is-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=16299","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING : It Appears Tua\u2019s 2024 Season is Over"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"BREAKINGIf you are paying attention, the Dolphins are saying something without coming out and saying it out loud.<\/p>\n

Whenever Tua Tagovailoa is mentioned, his supporters and detractors tend to get emotional and let their emotions cloud their judgment and rational thought. Try to look at this topic without emotion and listen to what is being said.<\/p>\n

The Miami Dolphins are alive and fighting for a playoff spot entering Week 18 of the NFL Season. Very few people, fans and media alike, thought this was possible when the team started the season 2-6.<\/p>\n

But here we are.<\/p>\n

With that said, the Dolphins\u2019 final playoff push is taking place without its superstar quarterback and highest-paid player,\u00a0Tua Tagovailoa.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t uncommon for the Dolphins, though as Tua performing badly or not playing at all late in the season seems to be the norm now.<\/p>\n

In 2020, in a key late-December game, Tua was benched against the Raiders for poor play, and the team needed\u00a0Ryan Fitzpatrick\u00a0to come off the bench to win the game.<\/p>\n

In 2022, in the final two regular season games of the season, Tua missed with a concussion, and then he was unavailable for the playoff game in Buffalo.<\/p>\n

In 2024, Tua missed a key game against Cleveland in Week 17 and is unlikely to play against the Jets this week. Now, his 2024 season may now be over due to his most recent hip injury.<\/p>\n

What is so frustrating for Dolphins fans this time is that the injury appeared to come out of nowhere. Just last Thursday, Tua was at the podium talking to the media, downplaying the injury and saying it was nothing serious. Mike McDaniel gave no indication that Tua\u2019s injury was serious and may not play.<\/p>\n

I guess they felt the need to hide the injury to get a \u201ccompetitive advantage\u201d over the lowly Cleveland Browns.<\/p>\n

Regardless, since the win over Cleveland with\u00a0Tyler Huntley\u00a0under center, McDaniel has had to speak a few times and has given more insight on the injury.<\/p>\n

McDaniel, after the game on Sunday, said:\u00a0\u201cSurgery is not currently on the table.\u00a0I mean, aren\u2019t you talking about next year? It\u2019s hard to forecast next year. C\u2019mon \u2013 calendar joke? Like I said, we had reasonable, hopeful expectations for his body, and he absolutely had the same expectations. So, to even begin to forecast this next week is difficult because we were waiting until the last hour. Ultimately, he is super important to our team. It was not ideal in any way, shape, or form to have a game like this and not have him available, but it was also, from a medical perspective, not an option for him to play. We\u2019ll be hopeful for that as we progress. I can\u2019t even lean one way or the other really. We\u2019ll see what the world has in store for us.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Surgery?<\/p>\n

The first words out of McDaniel\u2019s mouth when asked about Tua was to mention surgery?<\/p>\n

If surgery isn\u2019t on the table, that tells you it was considered and ruled out if you read between the lines.<\/p>\n

On Monday, McDaniel was again asked by the media who is making the final call on whether Tua plays or not. McDaniel said:\u00a0\u201cWell, I think with injuries it\u2019s pretty cut and dry \u2013 100 times out of 100, if someone\u2019s not medically cleared to play, I don\u2019t trump card that. I suppose, on game day, I guess by the letter of the law you could say it\u2019s my final say. My final say is to choose to listen to the medical professionals with their expertise and knowing the pros and cons and that\u2019s the only thing responsible to do with players. And then realistically, those conversations, Chris (Grier) and I get debriefed and sometimes more than other times depending on the injury in question, but that with our medical team and the doctors that are experts in the field, but to play for the Miami Dolphins, you have to have medical clearance to do so and when doctors tell you that a player is not safe to play football, we don\u2019t ever deviate off of that. That would be extremely irresponsible on my part.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

For those fans who still don\u2019t want to believe Tua is truly hurt and he \u201cmay come back and play this week vs. the Jets or if alive next week in the playoffs,\u201d McDaniel gave more insight, stating on Saturday things looked bleak for Tua, and on Sunday, there was no chance he could play.<\/p>\n

McDaniel said:\u00a0\u201cYou get updates all week and you\u2019re trying to figure out what it\u2019s going to look like. Saturday, it looked bleak, but officially with zero ambiguity on Sunday morning, we knew. But that was based upon Saturday information that, \u2018all right, it\u2019s going to have to really take a turn,\u2019 and when we saw it didn\u2019t, it didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

McDaniel went on to say that Tyler Huntley will get the majority of the reps this week in practice, which is code for us getting him ready to be the starter vs. the Jets.<\/p>\n

McDaniel also said that the risk of Tua playing with this injury is he would be put at risk of a \u201csignificant injury.\u201d<\/p>\n

And we should expect that is going to heal in a week or two? Please don\u2019t pee on my leg and tell me it\u2019s raining.<\/p>\n

I was born at night, but not last night.<\/p>\n

When you start to put the pieces of this puzzle together, what we see is that the Dolphins are really shutting Tua down for the season because of this hip injury.<\/p>\n

Folks, the Dolphins are all but saying without saying Tua is hurt really bad and not close to being healthy enough or medically cleared to play. This seems like an injury that may take weeks or months or maybe even surgery to fix.<\/p>\n

Realistically, Miami only has one game left because the odds of Denver losing to Kansas City\u2019s backups are slim and none, so there is no need to make a bold move like putting Tua on IR to end his season. They can just have him be inactive and call up\u00a0Skylar Thompson\u00a0as the backup.<\/p>\n

But even if Miami catches every break and does get into the playoffs and has to travel to Buffalo in a week to face the Bills, from all indications, Tua will not play in that game.<\/p>\n

McDaniel is throwing out the word surgery, talking about how his mobility is limited and that they don\u2019t want him to be a sitting duck behind the offensive line\u00a0(which is laughable considering he has been a sitting duck behind the offensive line since the day he was drafted)<\/em>, and how Huntley is taking the majority of the reps in practice.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t need to be Scooby Doo to solve this mystery, and that is Miami has shut down Tua for the rest of the 2024 season.\u00a0Without actually publically saying he has been shut down for the rest of the 2024 season.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you are paying attention, the Dolphins are saying something without coming out and saying it out loud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hot-news","category-nfl"],"yoast_head":"\nBREAKING : It Appears Tua\u2019s 2024 Season is Over - 24\/7 News America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=16299\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"BREAKING : It Appears Tua\u2019s 2024 Season is Over - 24\/7 News America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you are paying attention, the Dolphins are saying something without coming out and saying it out loud.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=16299\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"24\/7 News America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-01-02T01:42:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/472234365_122114921030622799_345.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1076\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=16299\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=16299\",\"name\":\"BREAKING : It Appears Tua\u2019s 2024 Season is Over - 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