MIAMI GARDENS — For much of the first four games of the 2025 season, Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa has been under heavy scrutiny over his play.
Through it, quarterbacks coach Darrell Bevell has seen him stay even-tempered.
“I haven’t really seen him that dispirited the last few weeks,” Bevell said. “It’s important to him to play well, obviously. But it’s more the mindset of, ‘Where can I make my corrections? What can I do better?’ But it hasn’t been an aspect where he’s lost any confidence or been down.”
Tagovailoa started the season with three turnovers — two interceptions and a lost fumble — against the Indianapolis Colts. He then had key late interceptions in tight losses to the New England Patriots and Buffalo Bills.
If there was cause for concern with Tagovailoa’s psyche, Bevell would be there to step in.
“I really try to do my best to stay connected with Tua, in terms of the mental aspect, the physical aspect, really all aspects of playing quarterback,” he said. “So I have to have a great feel of how he’s being affected, whether it’s noise from outside, noise from inside, all those things, and have a good feel on how to handle that. And do I need to buoy him up? Do I need to get after him? All those different things that coaching entails.”
Bevell hasn’t necessarily found consistencies with Tagovailoa’s four interceptions, but he usually reverts his teaching back to one key fundamental.
“For us, a lot of times it comes back to our feet,” Bevell said. “I’m not speaking to all of those (turnovers), but just, generally, it comes back to our feet.”
In Monday’s win against the Jets, Tagovailoa was 17 of 25 for 177 yards, two touchdowns to new tight end Darren Waller and no interceptions.
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He looked to have some of his 2023 swagger back with the way he flipped back a pitch to wide receiver Malik Washington off a run fake.
“He has fun with it and he really enjoys those plays,” Bevell said, “and he just does such a great job of any of the ball handling that we ask him to do. He’s amazing at it. He’s got a great feel for it.”
Injury report
The Dolphins on Thursday had cornerback Storm Duck (ankle) and wide receiver Cedrick Wilson Jr. (knee) as the two players on the active roster not seen practicing Thursday.
That’s consistent with the team’s Wednesday estimation of a practice report as Miami held a walkthrough Wednesday.
Duck was seen Thursday working out on the side, but his status is once again in doubt for a fourth consecutive game after the Dolphins chose not to place him on injured reserve following the season-opening loss to the Colts.
Strange benefits
Dolphins offensive coordinator Frank Smith detailed some of what he’s pleased with when it comes to new starting right guard Cole Strange’s play.
“I think he has movement ability that, especially in the run game, that for us we thought was a good fit to our system,” Smith said. “He showed it by playing and also just his ability to take in information and really kind of understand what we’re doing if we wanted to go with him.”
Strange started at right guard for the Dolphins on Monday against the Jets after Miami had starting free agent acquisition James Daniels go down with a pectoral injury three plays into the season, had Kion Smith replace him and then subbed Daniel Brunskill in for Smith during the Sept. 18 loss to Buffalo.
Of course, Strange’s first in-game work with the Dolphins was not without fault.
“Everything is not always perfect in your first time out,” Smith said, “but there’s a lot of promising signs from him and his fundamentals and technique of what we’re trying to do.”
Special teams chatter
Dolphins special teams coordinator Craig Aukerman has gotten good work recently from punter Jake Bailey, especially after he pinned two punts down to the Jets’ 3- and 1-yard line late last game.
“I think he’s having a great year so far,” Aukerman said. “We’re going to continue to work with him, try to get even better. I brought him in two weeks ago and told him that, ‘Hey, I think you’re doing well for us, really well, but my standard is still higher for him,’ and he accepted that challenge. It was awesome to talk to him about a few things that we feel like we can get even better at.”
The final punt came with 13 seconds left and the Dolphins leading by 6 points. Aukerman liked the whole unit’s execution to get the ball down to the 1-yard line while letting as much time as possible run.
“We talk about situational football all the time. That’s a big part of us on special teams,” he said. “We know they were going to rush with 10 guys. They were only going to have their returner back there, so we got into a different look to help us out with protection and Jake made an unbelievable kick.
“What’s even better is, when the ball is rolling and Elijah Campbell is down there, he doesn’t let it get into the end zone for a touchback. Hits the ball and then our other players, understanding the situation again, that we don’t want to touch the ball because we want to let that clock wind all the way down until the ball stops.”
New York had two seconds left for its last gasp of an effort.
