The Dolphins had to make an in-game change at quarterback for the third straight game on Sunday and they wound up losing for the third straight week as well.
It was Skylar Thompson who had to leave the game this time, which meant Teddy Bridgewater returned to action after being put in the concussion protocol in Week Five. Bridgewater was playing in place of Tua Tagovailoa, who could return from his concussion to start for Miami against the Steelers next Sunday night.
That’s a lot of shuffling to deal with at a key position, but head coach Mike McDaniel said on Sunday that he does not want the team using the revolving door at quarterback as an excuse for the losses.
“You can look at it as a reason for X, Y or Z — I challenge the guys not to,” McDaniel said, via Marcel Louis-Jacques of ESPN.com. “We have a lot of faith in all the players that we have on this team, and the quarterbacks that we’ve been working with since last April, any one of them we have high expectations to go execute and succeed. Now, of course it’s not ideal. You want the guys that get all the reps during the week to play, but you always know that that’s a possibility. I’m going to demand that the team does not point at that to be a reason for what’s happened or a reason for the loss. I think that’s the easy thing to do. I think that’s the path of least resistance, and generally the path of least resistance doesn’t lend the results that an ambitious, convicted, all-in players’ team, organization wants. Yeah, there’s always difficulties and adversity within NFL football games. I thought we had the capability to overcome that, and we didn’t.”
The Dolphins were one of the hottest teams in the league through the first three weeks, but they have come down to Earth during their three-game losing streak. Shifting their trajectory will be a big task for McDaniel as his first year as a head coach continues to unfold.
