The good news for Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is that his return to the lineup on Sunday unfolded without any further concussions or other injuries, but the bad news was that the Cardinals rallied for 10 late points to pull out a win in Miami.
The loss drops the Dolphins’ record to 2-5 and the quarterback said that the pain associated with the result wound up overshadowing any positives about his first game action since Week Two.
“It feels good,” Tagovailoa said, via the team’s transcript. “It feels good to be able to come back and play with my teammates, to hopefully help in whatever way I can to get a spark going for us offensively or get the mojo going for the entire team. It feels good but a tough loss today against a really good team, so that diminishes not just what I’ve done, but a lot of what other guys have done individually as well.”
As the Dolphins hoped, Tagovailoa drew cheers from the Hard Rock Stadium crowd when he slid at the end of a run and the quarterback said it was “super cool” to hear that response. Head coach Mike McDaniel said he thought the quarterback “was decisive and kept himself out of harm’s way and I think that’s big for our team as we try to get through this rut.”
Tagovailoa said “there’s always time” to get out of that rut and noted that the team opened 1-7 in 2021 before finishing with eight wins in their final nine games. The quarterback said he feels this team is more talented than that one, but the results will need to get better soon if they want to avoid the same playoff miss that team experienced.
