ESPN’s Louis Riddick had a good rant against the Miami Dolphins like many of us have in recent days (and weeks and months and years).
Riddick is a rational voice on ESPN, a former front-office guy who brings that view to fans. That’s what makes his comments that the “deck was stacked against Tua” sound off base.
He said the Dolphins don’t have a good set-up for a young quarterback. No doubt about that. But has any team in the league tried — tried is the key word here — to make moves to help out a young quarterback more than Tua?
Let’s start with the offensive coordinator setup. Chan Gailey left angry last year despite having an offense that scored the most Dolphins points since 1985. He wasn’t Tua-friendly, the idea was. So he wasn’t coming back.
In came Tua’s personal quarterback coach, Charlie Frye, who called the plays the first four games, a team source said. That’s right, Tua had a guy he trusted completely and knew him well calling the plays. The Dolphins, you see, tried their best to help Tua — at least as they saw how to do it.
Never mind that coach Brian Flores was purposely coy on who was calling the plays. He said there was a collaboration where co-coordinators George Godsey and Eric Studesville contributed and Frye had the last word over the radio to Tua.
Frye called the plays until change was made for the fifth game. He was previously the offensive coordinator at Central Michigan. He had never coached in the NFL.
We can call it a troubled set-up from the start — and lots of us did even without knowing who was calling the plays. So you can see why it didn’t work in some form. But it was a setup with the idea to help Tua.
Then there was the offseason. The first draft pick? Tua’s most popular target at Alabama, Jaylen Waddle. The big free-agent signing? Will Fuller, a speedster meant to stretch the field.
This was a receiving corps with a portfolio of injuries. So no one could be too surprised when the fears came true last week against Jacksonville as Fuller, Devante Parker and Preston Williams were out of commission.
A second-round draft pick? Liam Eichenberg, the latest in a list of linemen drafted the past few years. Eichenberg’s been solid for a rookie, too, especially since playing all across the line. The line has been a continuous problem, though, and the hit that broke his ribs against Buffalo was Exhibit A of that.
The defense? Well, the first game at New England, Tua throws a bad interception in the final minutes while up 17-16. He’s bailed out from a week of questions by cornerback Xavien Howard stripping and recovering a fumble at the Dolphins’ 9-yard line.
Tua had a strong defense last year — the sixth rated in the league. That hasn’t carried over to this year as it’s been exposed at times. But it’s not an awful defense. It won the New England game, gave the offense chances before collapsing against Buffalo, spotted a 14-0 lead at Las Vegas …
There are a lot of reasons the Dolphins are 1-5. The drafts. The free-agent pickups. The convoluted offensive-coordinator set-up, etc. … If you want to say Tua was put in a bad situation, no doubt. He was. He still is.
But …. name a young quarterback who isn’t?
— Joe Burrow’s Cincinnati team is an organizational mess, his line a disaster and his coaching kept him throwing the ball until he had a season-ending injury as a rookie. He’s a star in his second year.
— Justin Herbert’s Los Angeles team had an offensive line last year that was ranked by the analytic crews (Warren Sharp, Football Outsiders, Pro Football Focus …) as bad as the Dolphins. His coaches were so bad the staff was fired. He set rookie records. With all five linemen replaced and a good staff, he’s a star in his second year.
Riddick said, “When you compare him to a guy like Justin Herbert, the situations have been totally different. If we look at that in its totality, for one, Herbert has been healthy. Tua has not been healthy.”
Different, yes. But it’s not like Herbert was set up for success.
— Trevor Lawrence stepped into an Urban Meyer-created disaster in Jacksonville.
— Zack Wilson has absolutely no help with the New York Jets.
— Justin Fields is saddled with a bad team and a coaching staff that’s mishandled him.
So Tua being put in a bad situation is par for the course for young quarterbacks. But it wasn’t a bad situation simply because the Dolphins didn’t try to help him. They tried. They tried to a fault when you look at the offensive set-up.
If you think Tua can be an elite quarterback, the question to ask isn’t about a “stacked” deck — it’s whether the Dolphins decision-makers can judge his talent properly.
They’ve seem him work for a year and a half now. If they trade for Deshaun Watson, they’re saying they’ve seen enough. But let’s be honest here: No young quarterback was attempted to be helped more than Tua.
2. The Heat put a whooping on the defending champs, Milwaukee, on Thursday in a game that told you how much they awaited it. It also said how the shorthanded Bucks look without three of their top six players. The Heat led 32-7 out the gates. It was a little reminiscent of when the Heat’s 2006 champs kicked off the 2007 season with a 108-66 loss to Chicago. That started a disastrous year. Hard to think that will happen to Milwaukee, but the Heat couldn’t have had a better opener.
3. The Panthers moved to 4-0 with a 4-1 win over a strong Colorado team. That follows a 4-1 win at defending champion Tampa Bay. The only question is a good one — how can they keep young goalie Spencer Knight out of the net? Well, Sergei Bobrovsky is 3-0.
4. Back to quarterbacks: Cleveland is trapped in a contract situation with Baker Mayfield. He’s good, not great. Case Keenum came in and was a lite version of him in a 17-14 win against Denver. The Browns face the dilemma many teams do with good-but-not-great quarterbacks: Pay them and put a ceiling on your team? Or let them walk and have no one at all?
5. One final note on Riddick: I agree with his idea the Dolphins would be “grossly irresponsible” in trading for Deshaun Watson without having some clarity of his legal situation, as I wrote in my column.
