History will see last Sunday to Thursday night as perhaps the most wrenching five days in the Miami Dolphins’ 59 years.
It began with star receiver Tyreek Hill the victim of inarguable police abuse of power after a traffic stop. He would go on, fairy tale-style, to catch an 80-yard touchdown pass and lead a season-opening comeback win a couple of hours later. But the sight of Hill, facedown on the pavement and handcuffed behind his back, will be the indelible snapshot we won’t forget.
That was national news that surely would be the low-point of the Dolphins’ NFL season.
Then Thursday night happened.
In an almost unimaginably familiar double nightmare, the Dolphins lost 31-10 at home to the rival Buffalo Bills ( again ), and also lost quarterback Tua Tagovailoa to a concussion ( again ).
Buffalo has won four straight AFC East division titles largely over the backs of the Dolphins, and nothing had changed. The Bills are still walking the Fins like a dog on a leash. Buffalo has now beaten Miami in five straight games, 12 of the past 13, and 14 of the past 16.
“There were a lot of things we thought we’d take care of that weren’t taken care of,” as coach Mike McDaniel put it.
As bad as the loss and maybe worse, Tagovailoa left the game in the third quarter with what was quickly ruled a concussion after a hard hit — and after throwing three costly interceptions that led to 17 Bills points.
Tagovailoa’s 2022 season was wracked by multiple concussions before he managed an injury-free ‘23. Now the monster that attacks the brain was back, overshadowing even the brutal defeat in the aftermath.
Tua was alert afterward and smiling as he chatted with teammates; encouraging signs. Still, until more is known the thought is Tagovailoa may be sidelined for several weeks as he was in 2022.
Anybody got Ryan Tannehill’s phone number?
Backup Skylar Thompson is the man for now, at least for a while.
“It makes me sick,” he said of seeing his teammate leave the game concussed. “You never want your opportunity to come with something like that.”
McDaniel said Friday the club will sign another QB as a safeguard, but seemed optimistic this concussion might not be as bad as the previous ones.
“I don’t see how he would play in the next game,” said the coach, suggesting optimistically Tua may be back in two weeks?
It is too soon for much in this conversation.
Too soon to yet know exactly how long Tagoaviloa will be sidelined.
Too soon for talk of retirement, as so many self-appointed experts in neuroscience on social media are suggesting he do.
Too soon to know if the double-whammy of the Bills loss and Tua’s injury will sink a promising season -- only that the season and hopes for it have been gut-punched.
Overreaction is human nature, and sports fans (and many in the media) have honed the craft, but the notion of “Tagovailoa should retire” is egregiously premature, and so easily cavalier for others to say. Let Tua, his family and doctors go that path if they wish, and without the pressure and cacophony of outside noise.
“It would be so wrong of me to even sniff that subject,” as McDaniel said. “His career is his career.”
Though Tua is of most importance today, the weight of the loss cannot be underplayed.
In the micro view a hundred things go into winning or losing any one football game (and Miami did most of them wrong Thursday). But from a macro vantage three major hurdles will define whether this Dolphins season may be looked back on as a success.
The Fins faced that first telling hurdle Thursday night in prime time, and tripped on it. Badly. Embarrassingly.
Miami needed to beat its archnemesis, the bleepin’ Bills, for a change. Instead it was a Buffalo stampede as the Fins were run asunder at home.
And the beat goes on...
The three hurdles Miami must clear to make this season a success — with one leading to the next:
1. Find a way to beat the doggone Bills.
2. Win the AFC East to avoid a road playoff game in wintry cold.
3. Win in the postseason, at least one game, for the first time in 24 years, the NFL’s worst such drought.
It was Miami’s regular-season-ending home loss to the Bills last year that blew the division title and sent the Dolphins off to sub-freezing Kansas City to lose in playoffs.
Wait. Probably need to add one more imperative:
4. Keep Tagovailoa healthy.
Patrick Mahomes tweeted out prayer-hands emojis after Tagovailoa went down. The Bills’ Josh Allen expressed support afterward and called Tagovailoa “one of the best humans on the planet.” Social media was flagrantly afire with instant retirement talk.
Thursday was supposed to signal a change at last. Instead the Dolphins played like a team expecting to lose and inventing ways to do it, even before Tagovailoa went down and out.
“A very, very hard game to take. Supreme disappointment,” McDaniel said. “This will be imprinted on all our guys for the rest of the season for sure. But we have a gigantic season ahead of us. We’re 1-1 and there’s adversity. Welcome to the NFL.”
The Dolphins were trying to heal the psyche with a victory against the one team they must learn to beat. The losing skid to the Bills and the fallout from the police incident with Hill dominated the buildup to the game.
“That’s going to be what’s written out there until we do something about that,” Tagovailoa had said of the can’t-beat-the-Bills narrative. “Until we do beat them, and beat them consistently, none of that’s going to change. And we have an opportunity to do that this year. We have an opportunity to do that Thursday.”
Opportunity lost, largely because of Tagovailoa’s three interceptions.
Tua was on his knees, literally but too figuratively, as his third interception was returned 31 yards for a touchdown.
Even the best QBs can be forgiven an occasional nightmare game of this sort. But this QB did it against a nemesis rival, weeks after signing a hugely rich contract extension, so he invited the doubts about him to reappear — along with the concerns about his history of concussions.
Losing to Buffalo again and the manner of it coupled with the QB’s latest concussion sits on the club like a heavy yoke.
McDaniel: “Losses are tough. Ones that you really built yourself up to get done and then lose in a surprising manner -- that’s tough. When you don’t give yourself a chance because of turnovers, that’s really though. And then your heart is involved. Tua is a family member of mine. Not easy.”
The Dolphins played in their popular aqua throwback jerseys Thursday, with end zones painted in old-timey orange, but none of the glory days mojo helped.
I know. Beating Buffalo would have been only one game. But this felt bigger than that, it was bigger, symbolically, at least.
“We know the stakes of it,” McDaniel had said. “Bottom line is, you get in this business for stakes like that.”
Trouble is, those stakes are through Miami’s heart when it comes to Buffalo.
Dolphins safety Jordan Poyer, prior a seven-year Bill, had admitted on arrival this offseasson that the Bills always thought Miami a team that might fold under pressure or quit when down. Thursday was supposed to end all of that. It did not.
New England owned the AFC East with 17 titles in 18 years through 2019. Then Tom Brady left. There was new hope. Miami hoped to step up, take over. But Buffalo has now won four straight division crowns.
Thursday was supposed to signal the beginning of change.
But the beat goes on.
The Dolphins recently produced T-shirts that read, MIAMI DIFFERENT. McDaniel wore one this week.
The slogan means to signify that things are different this year, with this team.
“If you’re trying to do something that maybe the organization hasn’t achieved in 24 years,” he explained by example, meaning a playoff win. “If you’re trying to stand out in the world. II think [we’re] leaning into that, creating our own standard for what we think our football should look like.”
Miami Different is not a bad slogan, but it sure didn’t fit Thursday night.
Yet another loss to nemesis Buffalo and yet another Tagovailoa concussion made it seem more like Miami Same-Old, Same-Old.
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