Miami Dolphins co-offensive coordinator Eric Studesville is indicating that changes in the team’s offense are a work in progress as the coaches attempt to exploit all of Tua Tagovailoa’s assets.
Studesville and fellow coordinator George Godsey offered their outlooks on Monday during a Zoom media session, with Studesville indicating that instructing players is virtually at the beginning with more to come.
“This may not be the answer you want, but it remains to be seen because we don’t know,” Studesville said. “We’re still teaching in the early stages of this. We haven’t put pads on yet. We don’t even know the playbook really well enough to do some of those things yet. We’re just now getting our hands on our players and we’re going to develop that. We can’t paint a picture in the future. What would we like it to look like? I’d love to say we’re going to score 70 points every game, (laughter) but that’s – obviously that would be desirable, but I don’t know that that’s going to happen. So what our goal is, is to get everything taught that we need to get taught – runs, protections, route-wise, the scheme, the mentality of our offense, what we want and then we’ll have to perform at a certain level – high level is going to be our expectations to go forward and win.”
Last season, Tagovailoa started for virtually the entire second half of the season, but the play calling was more basic as the rookie adapted to the NFL.
Now, with Tagovailoa set to begin his second season, Studesville and Godsey hope to take advantage of the speed added to the receiving corps thanks to Will Fuller and rookie Jaylen Waddle.
That would allow Tagovailoa to get over his rookie reluctance to throw into coverage and have his receivers battle for 50-50 balls.
Tagovailoa possesses a quick release and is an accurate passer. Beyond that he also has the leadership qualities necessary to take the next step toward stardom.
Studesville and Godsey have less than four months before the Dolphins’ first game to advance the understanding of the offense. However, Tagovailoa has already shown that he’s willing to put in the work necessary.
