Did the Dolphins’ quarterback plans for Week 13 just get leaked?
The Miami Dolphins have been quite direct about their ongoing quarterback situation — if Tua Tagovailoa is healthy enough to play, he will remain the team’s starting quarterback despite a strong performance from veteran signal caller Ryan Fitzpatrick in Week 12 against the Jets. But Tagovailoa’s health was the missing link for this week in the build up to the Dolphins’ latest showdown against the Cincinnati Bengals — the rookie quarterback was a limited participant all week, just as he was ahead of the Jets game before the Dolphins elected not to dress him.
And when Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores was asked about the looming decision at quarterback on Friday, he was especially amused to inform the South Florida media that the team would be making the decision about who will play as soon as he finished talking with the media — meaning that everyone would have to wait until Sunday to discover the answer.
Flores’ poking of the media wasn’t to fuel any non-existent quarterback competition, but rather it was likely rooted in every competitive advantage Miami could gather over the Bengals ahead of Sunday’s game. Preparing for two quarterbacks is more difficult than preparing for one, so leaving both options on the table despite Miami slamming the door shut on any speculation of returning to Fitzpatrick full-time is an understandable move.
The cat may be out of the bag. Tagovailoa’s agent, Leigh Steinberg, posted on Facebook that he was flying to Miami to watch “Tua play the Bengals” before editing the post to indicate that he was flying to watch the Dolphins. Whoops.
Tua Tagovailoa agent on Facebook first says he’s attending Sunday game to watch QB play vs. Bengals then edits to say he’s coming to watch Dolphins. 😆🤔
Dolphins have refused to publicly name starting QB this week. pic.twitter.com/B1yx1ByB2h
— Armando Salguero (@ArmandoSalguero) December 5, 2020
We’ll see if the post was simply a poor choice of wording or rather an indicator of the Dolphins’ plans. And if it is indeed a leak of the Dolphins’ personnel decision, it will be the second time this season that Miami’s quarterback decision-making has been leaked prematurely, which may cause some frustration from the Dolphins coaching staff and front office.
The Dolphins and Bengals kick off tomorrow at 1PM EST from Hard Rock Stadium.
