Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s Monday night stats look as though they could have come from a victory. The former Alabama All-American completed 22-of-28 passes for 253 yards with two touchdowns and one interception for a passing-efficiency rating of 113.2.
But they didn’t come from a win. They didn’t even come from a game that the Dolphins looked ready to win.
Miami lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers 28-15 on Monday night, ending the Dolphins’ four-game winning streak and dropping them from among the AFC’s playoff contenders with three games remaining on their regular-season schedule.
“Supremely disappointed in the outcome,” Miami coach Mike McDaniel said, “and I think it does a disservice to, really, the objective, the work that we were doing on this opponent. And flat out, their team was better than our team.”
FOR MORE OF AL.COM’S COVERAGE OF THE NFL, GO TO OUR NFL PAGE
Miami trailed 7-3 before a disastrous third quarter. Pittsburgh scored a touchdown on each of its first three second-half possessions while the Dolphins’ third-quarter possessions were both three-and-outs. On the six plays, Miami netted minus-20 yards, with Tagovailoa sacked on third down on both series.
Tagovailoa dropped back on seven third downs in the game. He completed two passes for 41 yards, threw one incompletion, got sacked three times and scrambled for a 1-yard gain.
With the Dolphins’ season set to end on Jan. 4 now, McDaniel was asked if he would consider using Zach Wilson and Quinn Ewers at quarterback now.
“I think it would be very rash and shortsighted if I even tried to tackle that option,” McDaniel said. “I think I have to look at the tape, and I’ll move on from there. But, realistically, I’m just supremely disappointed that we couldn’t come out with a win here. We had high expectations, and they fell short.”
After the Dolphins fell behind 28-3, Tagovailoa completed 16-of-18 passes for 194 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. He failed to connect on two 2-point conversion throws.
Miami had won four games in a row by averaging 192.25 rushing yards per game and compiling more yards on the ground than through the air in each contest. Against Pittsburgh, the Dolphins netted 63 yards on 16 rushing attempts.
“There were just some things offensively that we were doing that we were messing ourselves up, really,” Tagovailoa said. “Just basically every aspect from my communication to the guys with them getting in the huddle, calling the plays, getting out, guys knowing where to go with their alignments, some of that.”
In its next game, Miami plays the Cincinnati Bengals at noon CST Sunday at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.
“At the end of the day, it’s about pride that you have for yourself,” Tagovailoa said about playing out the string, “your last name on your back, who you are as a husband, who you are as a father, as a son, as a teammate, all of that. So we’ll see come on Wednesday. …
“You got to take yourself back to whatever it was — that 12-year-old kid. You take yourself back to that, and you tell yourself like, ‘Dude, what if you were playing in the NFL?’ You’d be ecstatic. That would have been your dream. You get to live it. But with that being said, you also got to come out with a sense of urgency of: Do you take pride in what you do when things are going good and when things are going bad? Because it falls into every asset of what you do in your life. So that was sort of my message to the guys after the game.”
