MIAMI GARDENS — It’s understandable, even laudable, the Miami Dolphins benched Tua Tagovailoa to drop the curtain on a six-year error and use the final three, inconsequential games of this season as a tryout for rookie Quinn Ewers.

But dumping Tua isn’t just something they can casually brush off like dandruff on their shoulder and be done with. They can’t just end the conversation as coach Mike McDaniel understandably did Wednesday afternoon with the constant idea that can be put to shorthand of, “We’re on to Cincinnati.”

Uh, no.

The Dolphins need to talk about this.

This week isn’t about Tua falling short for the Dolphins. It’s about a dysfunctional organization repeatedly falling short over years regarding him.

Seven seasons ago, team owner Steve Ross and president Tom Garfinkel sold everyone on tanking a season to get the top draft pick. That failed in part because the coach they hired, Brian Flores, didn’t embrace tanking. Flores won too many games.

The other part of that tanking failure is Ross promoted general manager Chris Grier to run the show and pick the quarterback. Grier already had shown a lack of ability here by purposely passing on Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen while running the team’s draft.

So, naturally, of the five quarterbacks drafted in the first 45 picks of the 2020 draft — Joe Burrow, Tua, Justin Herbert, Jordan Love and Jalen Hurts — Grier picked the one who hasn’t been successful as an NFL starter.

It’s so the Dolphins. That’s really the issue. It’s not about Tua. It’s about what the Dolphins did to themselves.

Ross needs to talk about this in cathartic detail. At the very least, he needs to sit down with everyone in the organization and go over where the Tua era went wrong to prevent a repeat. And don’t pretend it can’t repeat. It kept repeating for the past six years regarding Tua.

Flores warned everyone that Tua wasn’t a franchise quarterback. He was ignored, then fired, because of his brusque personality. Remember?

Flores then was deemed the bad guy when McDaniel came in and showed who Tua could be as an NFL quarterback. That’s what McDaniel’s main job in taking the job besides winning: Show who Tua can be. And he could be good on his good days.

The problem was McDaniel fell in love and ignored Tua’s health and athletic limitations. He “pounded the table,’’ as Tua said, to get the quarterback his massive four-year, $210 million contract. That’s not the first time a coach has taken the side of a player.

Why did Ross side with a first-time coach known to become attached to his players? Why was there no check-and-balance inside to protect the organization? Wasn’t it obvious no one in the league thought Tua was worth $50 million a year?

Was it as simple as Grier having neither the talent or the backbone to push back on offering that deal?

Grier is gone. It’s easy to blame him for everything. But Ross is here. Garfinkel and McDaniel are here. Team salary-capologist Brandon Shore is here.

They can all look at Tua and blame him for not rising to the level they hoped. But they were complicit in what played out.

Another disappointing Dolphins season is down to three games. It’s 25 years since the Dolphins won a playoff game. That’s not all on Ross, but the question continues to be if he can set up an organization to stop the skid.

Tua, the symbol of seven failed seasons, stood at his locker Wednesday afternoon and said all the right things after his demotion.

“My role here right now is to help whoever the quarterback is going to be,’’ he said.

He’s surely played his last down as a Dolphin. But the Dolphins aren’t done with him. He counts $99 million in dead money against the salary cap. He’ll be designated a post-June 1 release and to spread that to $66 million in 2026 and $33 million in 2027.

For the past four years, he’s been deemed the franchise quarterback. He lived up to that label as it turns out, too. He was flawed all along. And this franchise was dysfunctional in not recognizing it the past six years.