Miami Dolphins coaches as much to blame for Tua Tagovailoa struggles

The Miami Dolphins may or may not want Tua Tagovailoa next season. We simply don’t know but the coaches need to blame themselves.

Ryan Tannehill was never a great quarterback for the Dolphins and you could point to the fact that he is a caretaking QB with the Titans. That’s fine but the Titans are winning and Tannehill is being coached to play in their system. A system that works well with Tannehill’s ability.

In Miami, the coaching staff couldn’t figure out what to do with Tannehill. They refused to cater the system to him. They coddled him. They scaled down the offense and inevitably, he failed to impress. The same thing is happening to Tua Tagovailoa.

Tua is a good quarterback. Despite what some think, he can throw the deep pass. He is a lot like Drew Brees without the success. More the Chargers version of Drew Brees and far from the Saints version. I would venture to guess that if Tua was in New Orleans now, many fans would be wanting him in Miami.

Miami’s coaching staff, and namely Brian Flores is to blame for this mess when it comes to Tua. He has failed to get him an offensive system that works. That blame falls on the head coach who has gone through three, four if you count the two this year, OCs since he arrived. He has gone through four offensive line coaches. The offense continues to struggle.

Miami poured money into the offense this year. They signed Will Fuller, they added Malcolm Brown, they brought in Jaylen Waddle, they paid both Allen Hurns and Albert Wilson, they also went the exceptionally cheap route with their offensive line. Aside from Waddle, everything else just blew up.

How can any quarterback succeed in a system that has no running game? No consistent pass protection? Receivers who can’t get open or consistent separation? How can any quarterback succeed when the offense is so predictable that if you take away one player, Waddle, there is not other game plan?

Tua has his problems. I’m not a social media “Tua-Stan”. I am aware that there are hiccups and issues in his game, I know he is far from perfect. I’m not making excuses. He needs to be far more assertive and in command of his offense but I also know that it really doesn’t matter when you are being pulled off the field on 4th and short so the coaches can roll out a never-was starting QB to dive into the line of scrimmage. Or is being pulled to run a Wild Cat formation that hasn’t worked since 2008.

Tua isn’t set up to succeed in Miami and that isn’t going to change with the addition of another QB. It won’t open the playbook because if they haven’t opened it yet, there is a problem with the coaches. Design a playbook that features your quarterbacks abilities, not scale it down to hide his inabilities. In Miami, they simply are not doing him any favors.