Dolphins QBs coach Darrell Bevell, coming back from detached retina, has helped Tua unlock his best play

MIAMI GARDENS — Behind any quarterback that excels, there’s usually great coaching that’s taking place behind the scenes.

In Tua Tagovailoa’s case, he has one of the league’s best as his quarterbacks coach.

As the Miami Dolphins quarterback kicked off his 2023 campaign with arguably his best passing performance of his career, Darrell Bevell, within coach Mike McDaniel’s offense, has to be given some of the credit for unlocking Tagovailoa’s best play since he arrived in Miami last season.

Bevell has 15 seasons of offensive coordinator experience, has been an interim head coach twice, and when also counting earlier seasons as a quarterbacks coach, he has worked with the likes of Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Matthew Stafford and Trevor Lawrence. This past offseason, Bevell turned down offensive coordinator interview requests elsewhere, including the New York Jets, to remain with Tagovailoa in Miami.

But as a budding relationship with his latest quarterback was entering a second season, Bevell also had to deal with adversity. Within the first week of training camp, he suffered a detached retina, watching film on July 30, as a Yahoo story revealed last week.

“It was just a weird event that happened,” said Bevell on Thursday, speaking to reporters for the first time about his experience. “No trauma or anything. It just happened.”

He had a successful surgery and had to be away from the team for three weeks, returning the week of joint practices with the Houston Texans in mid-August. Now, he needs to hit a three-month mark without a setback to fully heal.

“So far, so good with the recovery,” Bevell said.

He is able to fly again, which he did to go across the country to Los Angeles for last Sunday’s win over the Chargers, but he had to take a road trip to Houston when he initially returned to the team.

“That was a long way,” Bevell said. “Once the gas bubble is out of there, then you can go back to flying.”

But for a week in recovery, he had to lie face down for 90 percent of the day. He made sure to easily surpass the mark, doing it for 98 percent between his own bed, a massage bed and also alternating by using the couch but still using the headrest on the massage bed.

“Since I didn’t have anything to do, I was just not messing with it,” Bevell said. “I wanted to make sure that I was as good a patient as I could be since I was missing time.”

It took a lot of will.

“It did,” he said. “Actually, my neck and back hurt worse than my eye did. You’re not used to being down that long, but we’re all good now.”

Bevell is now back to leading Tagovailoa, and to start their second season together, Tagovailoa won AFC Offensive Player of the Week for his 466-yard, three-touchdown consistent barrage on the Chargers defense that included a fourth-quarter game-winning drive.

“Over the time that we’ve been here, we’ve been able to see him grow in all kinds of ways,” Bevell said. “He’s just really kind of taken to all the training, all the timing, all the things that we’re asking him to do.”

Tagovailoa was able to read coverages to find openings in the middle of the field against the Chargers, something that plagued him in last season’s matchup. When star receiver Tyreek Hill switched it up from the constant inside release and went outside, Tagovailoa hit him perfectly for a 35-yard touchdown.

And even when Tagovailoa felt pressure and had to make a deep throw while on the move, Tagovailoa flung it 50 yards while off-balance to hit Hill for a clutch sliding grab on a key third-and-10 to extend the final go-ahead drive.

“Tua’s always been good at that,” Bevell said of the quarterback’s work in an off-schedule setting. “His field of vision is incredible. It’s probably as good as anybody I’ve been around. He sees things. He sees the defense. He sees how good guys are moving. When he does get moved off the spot, he gets his eyes down the field and sees a lot.”

Working with McDaniel and offensive coordinator Frank Smith, Bevell has offered different takes on matters to introduce discussions into coaching meetings that lead to the best outcomes.

“If we all came from the same place, thought the same thing, had the same viewpoint, it’d be a pretty boring day,” Smith said last week. “We’d all just kind of be like ‘Good?’ When you deal with guys with perspective and an expertise like he has, it’s been awesome.

“He is extremely meticulous in his process. … He’s just a very detailed guy who understands and has been a part of a lot of good football and coached a lot of great players.”