The 2024 Season Finale! Still alive for a playoff berth, and the Miami Dolphins appear to be starting backup QB Tyler “Snoop’ Huntley. Yes, once again, our $212.4M man is unable to take the field, despite the importance of winning this game to stay alive for a chance at being in the postseason. I’m not an optimistic fella, but if I were, I’d be seething that my starting QB is once again missing in an important game. This has been QB Tua Tagovailoa’s modus operandi since he’s been here. He’s either missed the playoff games, or you would have wished he’d missed the game because he played so poorly. I mentioned this important aspect quite a few times here, the man played last season in bubble wrap. This season, it took just 2 runs outside the pocket for Tua to get injured in both situations. The first time was against the Bills of his own volition, where the first down was already secured but he engaged the defender (Buffalo Bills S Damar Hamlin) and that aggressive play resulted in Tua missing 4 games, and since Tua himself had a 1-1 record before the injury, the Dolphins lost 3 of 4 and were at a critical point with a record of 2-5. I’ll get to this later in the article, but the Dolphins were just basically throwing guys out there after being here for a week, and we’re talking about players on other team’s practice squad, that had no experience in HC Mike McDaniel’s offense, and of course, Mike didn’t at the very least appear to streamline and simplify the offense for either backup QB Skylar Thompson or even more importantly, Tyler Huntley and Tim Boyle.

The Dolphins then faced off in Week 15 against the Houston Texans, and again, our QB was injured during a QB run. Not a designed run, escaping pressure and running for yardage, as most NFL QB’s do at least once or twice in any given game. Our QB though, well, he shows you why he needs to stay in that good ole bubble wrap, because he gets tackled by 2 defenders, one of them seems to make pretty good contact on his bad hip, and guess what? Yep! He’s out again. It’s as clear as day to this author that you simply can’t count on this QB, in any way. He’ll wipe the field with the weaker teams, throw up some gaudy stats, and he’ll even find a way to put up some garbage time gaudy stats in a blowout loss to the Green Bay Packers. If you watched that game, you know we never threatened the Packers on offense, we were down 27-3 late in the 3rd quarter and scored 14 points with the game out of reach and already decided, losing 30-17. If you just look at Tua’s stats, you might think we won this one, 37-46, 365 yards and 2 TD, 0 INT’s. Unfortunately, he’s become a stat compiler. He really came alive with the Packers playing a soft defense allowing us to dink and dunk and use the clock up and down the field with the game already decided. If you want to see what Tua is really about. Big game, playing a competitive team after putting a whooping on the disinterested NY Jets. The Texans are playoff caliber team, this was a widely anticipated game across the NFL, a chance for the Dolphins to really make some hay and validate the huge contract for QB Tua Tagovailoa. Well, you know how this story ends. Tua completes 29 of 40 passes for 196 yards, typical 2024 dink and dunk affair, a game Tannehill fans are all too familiar with, 1 TD, 3 INT’s. To boot, Tua is injured and looks to miss 2 games, and potentially 3.

This is what you paid for with Tua Tagovailoa. He’ll beat the ham and eggers, and make you think he’s the real deal while doing it. Play a team that’s one of the better NFL teams, and the Houston Texans are a far cry from elite mind you, but they’re good enough to bring out the worst in the Miami Dolphins, both HC Mike McDaniel, and his QB Tua Tagovailoa. I can guarantee you when he (MM) saw Tua take off and saw 2 defenders in hot pursuit, he wished he had a joystick to control his QB and get him out of harms way, but the NFL is no video game, and as things go for this franchise, the it’s really only been a select few times when Tua his put his body in harms way, he’s only rushed 17 times, but perhaps two times too many. Now, the question as to whether Tua is physically able to play, but the team is being overcautious and holding him out so he doesn’t get hurt again, we’ll likely never know. I can add, it doesn’t matter either way. It’s a huge problem, regardless of whether Tua can’t physically play, or the team is being cautious and protecting him. They are putting one player above the success of team, you know, “All for one, one for all”, except here in Miami. Tua fans can argue with me until the cows come home, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Patrick Mahomes are going out there with Tua’s injury, and probably winning too. This is the perfect example of why they never should have given him that huge contract. They bid against themselves, there was no other team involved, and we had the rights to play him on his 5th year contract. What do you think his contract would be after this season, missing 6 games, getting injured twice, and once again losing and underperforming against better NFL teams? You can subtract a few zeros at the end, tell ya that much!

So here we are, Game 17, with a chance, albeit a slim chance to make the playoffs. The Denver Broncos host the Kansas City Chiefs practice squad, as the Chiefs have nothing at all to play for being the #1 seed with an incredible 15-1 record. I’m going to say something most of you here won’t like, this was a very difficult season for the Chiefs, they don’t have a juggernaut team, and their QB did not have a statistically great season. Now I know the first thing Tua defenders will say will be the Chiefs have a great defense. Just so you know, while that’s true, the Dolphins are the #3 defense in some metrics. Our defense is top 10 in most, with the exception of turnovers, a very poor year taking away the football. I know many Tua defenders point fingers at the defense, and in truth, they’re not completely wrong, but this offense was supposed to be a juggernaut, was a juggernaut last season. Apparently, the cheat motions we used last season quietly became illegal and then every team figured out how to stifle this high powered offense. So now, this high flying offense throws about 20 screen passes a game, and we use this short passing game as an extension of the running game with RB De’Von Achane catching 78 passes for 592 yards. WR Tyreek Hill has yet to crack 1000, an easy get in a 17 game season. WR Jaylen Waddle, formerly the other half of this explosive tandem will settle for 700 yards as he’s OUT with an injury. Some say Chris Grier is SAFE, well look at what he did with Tua, Tyreek and Waddle, and he could and should be fired for ALL of those contracts!

QB Tyler Huntley played well last week against the Cleveland Browns. I could make the argument that he did his best Tua Tagovailoa imitation, finishing the game completing 22 of 26 passes for a very Tua-like (84% completion percentage), and 1 TD, 0 INT’s. He might have done Tua better than Tua. So now we visit the cold confines of New Jersey to play in MetLife Stadium against the NY Jets, who are completely disinterested in winning. I’m sure the Jets have seen the vitriol across town when the NY Giants last week upset the Indianapolis Colts ending the Colts chances for a playoff berth, but also ruining the NY Giants draft position to 4 now, from #1. Giants fans are livid! The NY Jets have the #7 spot as of now, and I doubt they want to finish any further back in a critical rebuild. I ave to ask, what does Stephen Ross or the Dolphins organization have on the NYG? I bet it’s almost as good as what Grier has on Ross! SO, Huntley will get his chance to play this game and further solidify his chances of being the backup QB for next season. Ohhhh, we’ve seen this before, he’ll play great Sunday, and the Dolphins won’t entertain any other QB’s feeling confident that Huntley is the guy, much like Skylar Thompson was the guy this season. Tua will get injured next season, and Huntley will step in as the starter and look a whole lot more like he looked against the Tennessee Titans in Game 4, as we got trounced 31-12. Tell me I’m wrong, this is what happens here, I can see it all the way from New Jersey.

Root hard, but be prepared to be disappointed. I think we’ll beat the Jets, they don’t care. I do think however Bo Nix and the Broncos will do enough to take down Carson Wentz and the Chiefs backups and the Broncos will get the final playoff berth in the AFC. I think QB Bo Nix and the Broncos are a more compelling story anyway, certainly more so than our team of ill prepared chokers. I’m sure Mike McDaniel will be back, and I do think there’s a slim chance that Grier gets the axe, but it won’t be on merit, that much is clear. He totally destroyed this roster, allocating far too much cap money to 3 players who have turned out to have little positive impact on our team. Tua, 6-5, Huntley will be 3-2 after Sunday’s game. Huntley showed he could beat a bad team just as well as Tua, and he’ll get another crack this Sunday. The numbers are staggering, we’re going to need to replace more than half the roster next season, with not a lot of cap space, unless they mortgage the future even further, by restructuring the mistakes they made this season. My feelings are dead, I’m just waiting to see how it all turns out, without a care of whether we win or lose. I won’t be upset either way. If they leave both GM Chris Grier and HC Mike McDaniel in charge of this team again next year, I can’t really foresee any success next season, and who really knows if either will ever be held accountable if they’re not successful. Sad situation!

GO DOLPHINS!!!