MIAMI – It was either a moment of denial, misinterpretation or naivete.<\/p>\n
At least that\u2019s what I\u2019m trying to convince myself, attempting to explain Tua Tagovailoa\u2019s reaction to my question about why the Miami Dolphins\u2019 starting quarterback\u2019s turnovers tend to come in bunches during his six NFL seasons.<\/p>\n
Tagovailoa has delivered three consecutive seasons with a 100-plus passer rating, which proves he\u2019s one of the NFL\u2019s most accurate and consistent starting quarterbacks when healthy. A fourth season straight season with a 100-plus passer rating will put him in a quarterback club only Aaron Rodgers and Steve Young are members of.<\/p>\n
But when a turnover does happen in a Tagovailoa-played game, they tend to happen multiple times in that same contest, and that was the case during Sunday\u2019s 33-8 season-opening loss to the Indianapolis Colts, which was a chin check to a franchise fighting to avoid an organizational reset.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say I\u2019m pressing. It\u2019s part of the game,\u201d said Tagovailoa, whose 51.7 passer rating against the Colts was the second worst of his career.<\/p>\n
That performance only trails the 40.6 passer rating he produced in a loss to Buffalo in 2020, a game he didn\u2019t finish.<\/p>\n
Tagovailoa then followed up his initial response by informing me and everyone watching the news conference that \u201cI thought that was a wild comment, that I turn the ball over in bunches. That\u2019s crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s accurate!<\/p>\n
This was the seventh time Tagovailoa has committed at least three turnovers since 2020, according to ESPN Research, and only one quarterback (Jacksonville\u2019s Trevor Lawrence) has more in that span, with eight.<\/p>\n
Tagovailoa lost a fumble and threw multiple interceptions for the fourth time in his career, and this is the second time in his past three starts he\u2019s done it, which includes last year\u2019s humbling loss to the Houston Texans.<\/p>\n
Throughout Tagovailoa\u2019s six-year career, which spans 62 starts and 64 games played, he has 13 games where he has committed one turnover and 18 games where he\u2019s committed multiple turnovers.<\/p>\n
The Dolphins have a 14-10 record in games where Tagovailoa commits more than one turnover, which includes fumbles.<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s performance against the Colts was the seventh game of his career where he had committed three turnovers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe throw I sailed on Tyreek, I maybe hung on (to) it a little longer (than I should). My feet were telling me (go to) the (next) progression,\u201d Tagovailoa said about his first turnover, a high pass to Tyreek Hill that Colts free safety Camryn Bynum plucked out of the air at Indianapolis\u2019 17-yard line and returned it 14 yards to begin Indianapolis\u2019 second drive, which ended with a Michael Pittman Jr. touchdown that put the Colts up 10-0. \u201cI had Jaylen (Waddle open) on that throw instead of hanging there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miami\u2019s next drive ended after two plays when Colts nickel cornerback Kenny Moore II blindsided Tagovailoa for a sack fumble as a free blitzer coming from the right side, Tagovailoa\u2019s blind side.<\/p>\n
The Dolphins\u2019 offensive line failed to make a protection adjustment. Left tackle Patrick Paul and left guard Jonah Savaiinaea ended up blocking the same defender, tight end Tanner Conner went out for his route, and Austin Jackson was late picking up Moore\u2019s blitz.<\/p>\n
Former Dolphins cornerback Xavien Howard picked up the loose ball at Miami\u2019s 42-yard line, and the Colts scored a touchdown five plays later, going up 17-0 with 12 minutes left in the second quarter.<\/p>\n
From there, the snowball of negative plays picked up steam, which explains why the Dolphins finished the game with 211 yards.<\/p>\n
Tagovailoa\u2019s third turnover occurred on Miami\u2019s first drive of the second half when a short pass over the middle of the field was intercepted by Colts defensive lineman Laiatu Latu, who dropped back into coverage on Miami\u2019s offense while a three Colts rushers came after Tagovailoa.<\/p>\n
The Colts flooded the middle of the field, hoping Tagovailoa would gift them the ball trying to covert the first down.<\/p>\n
Tagovailoa slid to his right to buy time and was targeting slot receiver Malik Washington on the third-and-3 pass Latu jumped in front of.<\/p>\n
The Colts kicked a field goal seven plays later to go up 23-0 with 7:30 left in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
From that point Miami\u2019s offense became pass-centric, running the ball three times the rest of the snaps Tagovailoa was on the field before getting replaced by Zach Wilson in Miami\u2019s final possession.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs an offense, we\u2019ve got to get going,\u201d Tagovailoa said, referring to Miami\u2019s turnover-stalled drives. \u201cOnce you get in that groove and rhythm, things start happening for us. We couldn\u2019t find that.\u201d<\/p>\n
And mainly because they couldn\u2019t take care of the ball, which happens to be Tagovailoa\u2019s strength as a quarterback.<\/p>\n
When asked to evaluate Tagovailoa\u2019s performance, coach Mike McDaniel acknowledged it wasn\u2019t one of his quarterback\u2019s better showings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s definitely not all on him. There\u2019s just throws that I know he makes nine times out of 10, and he didn\u2019t make them,\u201d McDaniel said. \u201cBut that being said, it\u2019s hard to play quarterback when you have surprise pressures, they are blitzing, and you think it\u2019s accounted for and then somebody doesn\u2019t pick it up.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also hard to win games when your starting quarterback keeps gift wrapping multiple possessions to the opponent and, more importantly, has little to no awareness he turns the ball over in bunches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI – It was either a moment of denial, misinterpretation or naivete. At least that\u2019s what I\u2019m trying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[63634,1586,265,11742,2005,3334,59472,7,16604,5446,636,2004,392,2381,5820,642,251,122,6,47357,1890,47358,646,19010,1257,632,635,638,314,3452,10785],"class_list":{"0":"post-357181","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indianapolis-colts","8":"tag-2006-miami-dolphins-season","9":"tag-aaron-rodgers","10":"tag-american-football","11":"tag-blitz-gridiron-football","12":"tag-colts","13":"tag-cornerback","14":"tag-down-gridiron-football","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-fumble","17":"tag-gridiron-football","18":"tag-gridiron-football-variants","19":"tag-indianapolis","20":"tag-indianapolis-colts","21":"tag-indianapoliscolts","22":"tag-interception","23":"tag-lineman-gridiron-football","24":"tag-miami-dolphins","25":"tag-national-football-league","26":"tag-nfl","27":"tag-nfl-seasons","28":"tag-nfl-teams","29":"tag-nfl-teams-seasons","30":"tag-outdoor-sports","31":"tag-passer-rating","32":"tag-quarterback","33":"tag-seasons-in-american-football","34":"tag-seasons-in-american-sport","35":"tag-team-sports","36":"tag-trevor-lawrence","37":"tag-tua-tagovailoa","38":"tag-xavien-howard"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}