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MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Miami Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel plans to start Tua Tagovailoa on Sunday night against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
He also plans to have Tagovailoa finish the game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
And start the next week and the week after that.
To that end, McDaniel is imploring Tagovailoa to be careful with his body following back-to-back injuries that forced him to miss the past two games. Sometimes, McDaniel said, being careful means knowing when to give up on a play.
“There is a time in a play where you have to kind of concede,” McDaniel said Monday. “And that’s where he’s kind of been focusing on, because it’s something that’s not natural to him. He wants to break every tackle. And he doesn’t like it when plays don’t work. Well, sometimes they won’t.”
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It’s a realization all elite quarterbacks attain, McDaniel said. It’s how they stay on the field.
“The guys that you look up to, the guys that kind of set forth the example of how to play the position — they do find ways to be available,” McDaniel said. “And part of that is that concession.”
Better to lose the down, McDaniel is telling Tagovailoa, than for the Dolphins to lose their quarterback again.
“In terms of a competitor, you just need to be able to understand your importance to the team and how sometimes the best play you can make is a throwaway,” McDaniel said.
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Tagovailoa suffered a concussion when sacked against the Bengals. The Dolphins went into that game 3-0 but have since lost three in a row while shuffling QBs, including starts by Teddy Bridgewater and Skylar Thompson.
Both Tagovailoa and Bridgewater had limited participation in practices late last week as they progressed through concussion protocol, which they cleared over the weekend.
“I don’t anticipate necessarily rust from a mechanic’s standpoint,” McDaniel said of Tagovailoa. “He’s pretty gifted in that realm. … Luckily, he hadn’t forgotten. He didn’t start throwing right-handed.”
McDaniel said it won’t be until Wednesday that the team has a better sense of the injury suffered by Thompson in the first half against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday. Thompson banged his thumb on a defender’s helmet, which forced Bridgewater to finish the game.
One way to enhance Tagovailoa’s odds of staying healthy is to have him behind the best offensive line the team can offer. That hasn’t been the case all season. McDaniel said keeping left tackle Terron Armstead out of the Vikings game meant he took “a step in the right direction” from a toe injury. But it remains unclear when right tackle Austin Jackson might come off injured reserve.
By the end of the Vikings game, six Dolphins were on the injury report. Most significant was the Achilles injury suffered by cornerback Nik Needham, which will force onto injured reserve for the rest of the season.
“He’s in good spirits,” safety Brandon Jones said. “Obviously, it’s tough. He was so locked in going into the game. I knew that obviously without the injury, he was going to have a huge game. So seeing that hurts, being another DB and just a guy that we’ve all loved.”
The secondary is one of several areas hard hit by injuries. McDaniel said it’s still unclear the severity of defensive back Keion Crossen’s knee injury.
“He’s one of the fastest healers that I have ever been around,” McDaniel said.
Starting cornerback Byron Jones continues to rehab from a leg injury that has kept him out all season. McDaniel wants to be cautious because of the physical demands of playing cornerback.
“Byron’s been around,” Brandon Jones said. “He’s like a teacher these days. He’s in there watching film. We meet as a defense and as DBs and he’s putting his input in and asking questions and just being very involved.”
The injuries pressed Noah Igbinoghene and Justin Bethel into duty against the Vikings. Igbinoghene had two pass break-ups. Bethel had a tackle and a pass defensed.
“I wasn’t surprised,” Brandon Jones said. “I see the way they prepare. With circumstances, it’s easy to check out and especially if you’re not getting the reps, getting opportunities that you want. But I didn’t see any drop-off.”
In other news, the Dolphins released running back ZaQuandre White from the practice squad.
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