Why Miami's offense is sputtering without Tua Tagovailoa and what's next

Miami turned to Skylar Thompson following Tagovailoa’s injury and then to Tyler Huntley, who the team signed off the Baltimore Ravens practice squad, when Thompson was knocked out of his first start against the Seattle Seahawks.

Neither has been able to jumpstart an offense that was supposed to be among the league’s best this season.

Here’s how the Dolphins’ 180 from a dominant 2023 season came to be:

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Knowing Tagovailoa’s injury history, why wasn’t Miami better equipped at backup quarterback?

Thompson beat out Mike White for the No. 2 job this summer, and both players had been with the team for multiple seasons. With Thompson, Miami believed it had a quarterback who possessed command of McDaniel’s offense and whose teammates positively responded to him whenever he was in the huddle.

Ultimately, McDaniel said he made the decision on Thompson when he entered the team’s final preseason game this year.

“I saw teammates believe in him, and I saw teammates get off the bench during the drive and start getting close to the white,” McDaniel said. “Those are all the things that for me, is what I’m evaluating because just going back to what is the actual job of your backup, and I thought it was a cool moment.”

While McDaniel said Thompson had developed greatly since his rookie season in 2022, the results were poor in his start against the Seahawks; he completed 13 of 19 passes for 107 yards and a 6.1 QBR in the loss to Seattle.

It’s reasonable to criticize the Dolphins for not having a more experienced veteran, but the team was also reasonable in having higher expectations for a player entering his third year in their system.

Thompson won his second career start in 2022 — a win-or-go-home contest against the New York Jets in Miami’s regular-season finale. He was also serviceable in the Dolphins’ loss to the Buffalo Bills the following week in the AFC wild-card round. His numbers weren’t pretty — 18-of-45 for 220 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions — but the Dolphins lost a playoff game in Buffalo by three points with a seventh-round rookie at quarterback.

It was enough to inspire optimism moving forward, even if he spent all 19 games in 2023 as a healthy scratch on game day.

“He has ran our plays in a walkthrough setting probably more than anybody on our team,” McDaniel said on Sept. 19. “… He’s done that for a calendar year incessantly, and the results are there is a broader chest in the huddle.”

McDaniel also said that practice squad quarterback Tim Boyle‘s personality made him “a good fit” for the room, based on what he’d heard from mutual acquaintances.

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In light of recent examples of team’s having success with backup QBs — like Matt LeFleur’s with Malik Willis in Green Bay — why has the Dolphins’ offense struggled so much with Tagovailoa out?

The Dolphins’ offense was struggling long before Tagovailoa’s injury.

In 11 games since hanging 45 points on the Washington Commanders in Week 13 of last season, the Dolphins’ offense has scored 30 points once. They scored fewer than 20 points seven times in that span.

Miami were without receivers Jaylen Waddle or Tyreek Hill in four of their final five games last season due to various injuries, highlighting a need for a third receiving option. The Dolphins signed Odell Beckham Jr. and Jonnu Smith to fill that void, but their integration had not materialized before Tagovailoa’s injury.

Beckham started the season on the physically unable to perform list after offseason knee surgery while Smith and Tagovailoa had played just a game and half together, with minimal preseason snaps.

Thus, one of the Dolphins’ largest issues on offense was exacerbated by breaking in multiple quarterbacks in a three-week span.

Before their win over the Patriots, the Dolphins also weren’t getting much out of their run game. Since Week 3, Miami’s minus-.30 average rushing yards over expectation ranks 24th in the NFL; it also ranks 17th in average yards before contact (2.35) but last in average yards after contact (.65).

Statistically speaking, Miami’s offensive line has been average in terms of creating lanes, but its running backs haven’t been able to shed tackles.

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Miami has the most expensive wide receiver corps in the league. What responsibility does it and Miami’s other playmakers shoulder for the offense’s poor performances?

Hill and Waddle are each on pace to finish the season with fewer than 1,000 receiving yards — which would mark the first time this tandem has done so in a Dolphins uniform. While some of their production can be attributed to instability at quarterback, Waddle said Miami’s playmakers have to do their part in helping whichever quarterback is in the game.

McDaniel said the responsibility for the Dolphins’ offense doesn’t fall on one player — especially in adverse situations.

“When you have injuries, when you have adjustments in the lineup, people have to step up,” he said. “If they’re executing their jobs at 90 percent generally, it needs to be 95 to 98 and we’re not getting that right now — so bottom line is that it’s definitely not one person and there’s a lot of things that are going on in the pass game that have to do with line of scrimmage. A lot of things on the line of scrimmage have to do with the receivers and the eligibles getting open in the timing of the play, so collectively we just need to do a much better job.”

According to Next Gen Stats, the Dolphins’ pass catchers have been “open” (3-plus yards of separation) on 54.5% of their routes this season, but their minus-151 receiving yards over expectation is the fourth-worst in the NFL.

This suggests a lack of chemistry with their quarterback — which is to be expected considering Huntley’s experience in this offense. Hill said the onus is on Miami’s receivers to make plays happen once they get the ball in their hands.

“Whenever it’s time to make a play, just make a play within a play — don’t go outside the techniques and fundamentals that you’ve already been taught,” Hill said. “It doesn’t mean go outside of what you’re doing or run the wrong route, because that throws off a lot of quarterback timing. If you run a slant route, catch the slant route and do a little bit extra, get jiggy with it and take it to the house.

“That means you got to give a little bit more effort to get open, not just get the catch and just get a first down. How about let’s extend that, take it 70 yards, or take it 50 yards. That’s 95% to me.”

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What’s the plan for the offense going forward? Will Miami look to make additional moves at QB?

For now, the plan is to continue with Huntley as the team’s starter.

McDaniel said the Dolphins’ upcoming bye week will be critical for Huntley’s acclimation into the offense.

“It’s huge,” McDaniel said after the Patriots game. “You’re playing catch-up the whole time that you’re playing football and you’re knowing your responsibilities, you’re knowing what the pass concepts are, and now you have a chance to really study the strengths and weaknesses of certain things.

“You have to orchestrate a lot of moving parts, and I thought he did a good job handling all that. He has done a phenomenal job really since he’s been here, but it was a step forward today for sure.”

With Sunday’s win over the Patriots, Miami has a chance to claw its way back to .500 if it beats the Colts in Week 7 — far from the worst-case scenario it could have faced in Tagovailoa’s absence.

There’s still no word as to when Tagovailoa will return, if at all, but his stay on injured reserve will last until at least Week 8; McDaniel said on Monday that Tagovailoa would continue to meet with specialists during the Dolphins’ bye week.

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How reasonable is it to change large parts of the offensive scheme?

McDaniel knows what it’s like to change an offense for a player; he was an offensive assistant for a Washington team that had to recreate its playbook for Robert Griffin III in 2012.

But that’s not something he feels is necessary for the Dolphins without Tagovailoa. McDaniel said the framework of Miami’s offense allows for some wrinkles based on personnel but he doesn’t believe the team is executing well enough to say with conviction that the quarterback is incapable of running it.

“It just feels like an offense that’s not good enough generally and whether that’s coaching or playing, we’re all in it together,” he said. “It’s a bottom-line business. I think there’s strengths and weaknesses that everybody provides … half the time you could say the plays don’t matter — what I call — until we have 11 people executing something in one direction. I think there’s perfectly capable players to do the things that we’re asking them to do going into the game.”

Even during the bye week, don’t expect widespread changes to the Dolphins’ offensive playbook. Instead, they want Huntley to use the time to expand his command of the offense.