Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa got off to a rough start in his first preseason outing of 2023, but he rebounded to engineer a nice, long touchdown drive against the Texans.
On Miami’s first play from scrimmage, Tagovailoa rolled to his left and fired an interception to Houston’s Denzel Perryman. It looked as if Tagovailoa didn’t see Perryman on the second level as he was looking for tight end Tyler Croft.
But the next drive went much better, ending in a 2-yard touchdown run by Raheem Mostert. Though the running back got dropped for a 5-yard loss to open the drive, Tagovailoa was able to move the chins on third-and-8 with a 10-yard completion to tight end Durham Smythe.
Tagovailoa hit two more third-down completions — one to Tyreek Hill for 13 yards, another to Salvon Ahmed for 16 yards — and connected with Braxton Berrios for a 15-yard gain to the 6-yard line.
With two more runs, the Dolphins were in the end zone to cap a 14-play drive that lasted 7:31.
Another encouraging element from Miami’s second drive was that Tagovailoa took a hit and fell backward without hitting the back of his head on the turf. It’s been well documented that Tagovailoa trained in jiu-jitsu over the offseason to better fall in such a way that won’t leave him as susceptible to concussions.
Tagovailoa’s final line was 5-of-7 passing for 6`1 yards with an interception.
