MIAMI GARDENS — Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa must rebound from back-to-back three-interception games as the team turns the page on a dismal 31-6 loss to the Cleveland Browns before facing the Falcons in Atlanta on Sunday.
Coach Mike McDaniel is trying to work Tagovailoa through these costly turnovers.
“My coaching point isn’t ‘don’t do that.’ That’s not my coaching point. You’re trying to instruct for future,” McDaniel said Wednesday, before the Dolphins practiced to start the week of preparation for the Falcons. “I coach him on individual plays, specifically, how he can avoid that in the future.”
McDaniel, as speculation swirls over a potentially frayed relationship between him and his quarterback, mentioned meetings with Tagovailoa of more than an hour in length both Monday and Tuesday before Wednesday’s drills.
“It’s also important that I kind of remind him of how he’s responded in the past to give him conviction in the future,” he said. “So I think he’s been one that, he’s never strayed 100 percent from being questioned as a player. He’s at a high-profile position, and that is the expectation, is to have standards that he has for himself.
“He knows that, as a franchise quarterback, when you don’t live up to your own standard, you’re probably going to get a lot of unintended consequences by sheer result and you’re going to hear about it. And I have confidence, based on my history with him, that he’ll respond in the appropriate manner, which I’ve made sure to communicate with him.”
Tagovailoa leads the league with 10 interceptions in seven games. Beyond his three each in the past two games against the Browns and Los Angeles Chargers, he also had a three-turnover game of two interceptions and a fumble lost in the Sept. 7 opener against the Indianapolis Colts. The sixth-year left-handed passer threw key interceptions late in losses to the New England Patriots and Buffalo Bills in games that followed.
McDaniel made a wisecrack in his Monday news conference, saying he expects Tagovailoa won’t throw 10 interceptions in answering that he would remain the starter against the Falcons.
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It’s one of the reasons some on the outside believe the relationship between the two has been frosty of late.
“As Tua and I have always operated, I think there’s zero uncertainty with Tua on my conviction in him and my belief in him,” McDaniel said. “So I think we’re both very, very eager to do better at our jobs. And we’re both very committed and trusting of each other to respond to what is necessary for the team to do better.”
McDaniel said Tagovailoa, like his entire team, must shift focus entirely on the coming opponent.
“He’s received it (the communication) and pressed forward to the Atlanta Falcons, which is what our entire team is very much focused on,” McDaniel said. “Anything else, other than the Atlanta Falcons, is a waste of our time and we’re not doing a service to what we need to be doing to try to win a game.”
This story will be updated.
