DAVIE, Fla. – Despite Ryan Fitzpatrick’s great miracle that led the Miami Dolphins to a 26-25 win over the Las Vegas Raiders Saturday night, coach Brian Flores made it clear Sunday that Tua Tagovailoa remains his initial quarterback.
Flores expressed strong disagreement with those who did not form a team who believe that starting the veteran gives the Dolphins the best chance of winning.
“Tua has sparked us in a lot of other games. I think people will just forget about it because we only remember the last one,” Flores said. “Speculating on what people want to speculate about what we should or shouldn’t do based on last night, I wouldn’t and I’ll forget all the work throughout the season to include the latest games Tua ha started [eight]. I think he played pretty well.
“People may disagree, but I think we should agree to disagree in this case. That’s my opinion. It’s not based on a game or a quarter: there are a lot of practices that people don’t see, walk – steps that no one sees. But everyone wants to make a judgment and try to make a decision for us about what we should do without all this information. “
Flores ’defense against Tagovailoa comes a day after he put the rookie quarterback in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s comeback win. He compared Fitzpatrick’s role as the unloader of the ninth inning coming in to close out a game, and didn’t rule out calling his number nine if the Dolphins were in a similar scenario. For the same reason, Flores didn’t hesitate to name Tagovailoa as a starter next Sunday against Buffalo Bills in a major “win and stay” game for the expected Dolphins.
It’s rare for a modern NFL team to have a two-quarterbacks system, but it looks like the 10-5 Dolphins are comfortable with some version as they try to make the playoffs for the first time since 2016. It’s the second time Flores has made the transfer to Tagovailoa on the bench in the fourth quarter of a closed game (week 11 in Denver), and on both occasions he returned to Tagovailoa as a starter.
Tagovailoa has been very efficient with a better interception ratio (10 to 2 compared to Fitzpatrick’s 13 to 8) of the two quarterbacks, but Fitzpatrick has provided more plays on the field (7.8 yards per attempt and 232, 3 yards per game compared to Tagovailoa (6.3 yards / attempt and 161.4 yards per game) due to his willingness to risk 50-50 balls.
With questions about his QB situation after a big win, Flores made it clear that winning is all he cares about, no matter what people want to call his unusual rotation.
“I don’t want to put any label on it. The label is that we will do what we have to do to win. I owe it to the Dolphins fans, to the players in this locker room, to the people in the organization, that’s what we will always do. said Flores. “So, two-person QB, three-person QB, five-person QB, whatever we have to do to win, that’s what we’re going to do to win.”
After the match, Fitzpatrick and Tagovailoa said they believed in Flores to make the best decision for the team, while giving strong support to the other when they were not playing. This season there has been no problem with the Dolphins locker rooms along the QB switches, which shows that Flores has a good pulse of his team and made it clear that he believes in Tagovailoa now and then.
“Tua has played well. He has improved a lot throughout the season. He is developing,” Flores said. “I don’t make judgments or decisions based on an instance. There are a lot of things that go into the decisions we make: conversations and not just a game or a quarter. Yours has done a lot of good things for this team. You know that. The team he knows. “