The Miami Dolphins are in the final week of the first month of regular season football in 2022, and things have gone just about as well as anyone could have hoped for.
In three weeks, the Dolphins have logged three big wins. Two of those wins have come against division rivals. To make matters even more exciting, quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is starting to look every bit like the franchise quarterback the team hoped he would be when it drafted him with the No. 5 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft.
At the moment, however, Tagovailoa’s status for the Dolphins’ Week 4 matchup against the Cincinnati Bengals on Thursday seems to be in slight doubt.
If the team had practice on Monday, the word is that Tagovailoa would have had to sit out.
From SportsCenter this morning — Tua is dealing with back and ankle soreness and was an estimated DNP yesterday (the Dolphins didn’t actually practice)
We’ve learned since that Tua is considered questionable for Thursday’s game vs the Bengals pic.twitter.com/xoL351C416
— Marcel Louis-Jacques (@Marcel_LJ) September 27, 2022
He would’ve been limited on Tuesday if the team had a real practice.
Mike McDaniel: “It’s a tricky scenario … if (Tuesday) were an actual real practice, Tua would be limited and questionable for the game.”
— Marcel Louis-Jacques (@Marcel_LJ) September 27, 2022
Despite that, Tagovailoa himself has stated that he plans to play in Thursday’s hotly anticipated game.
Tua said plan is to play Thursday. "Doing everything I can to get out there and play"
— Barry Jackson (@flasportsbuzz) September 27, 2022
Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel offered a similarly inspiring message about how badly Tagovailoa wants to avoid missing Thursday’s game.
“I can tell in his voice he will literally do everything he can and in his power [to play],” he said. “I’ll know if he doesn’t play, it literally was not possible. Happy with how he has progressed and feel very optimistic.”
That is exactly the kind of leadership and determination a head coach wants to see in his starting quarterback. It’s inspiring to see Tagovailoa perform so well despite the incredible amount of pressure that he was facing going into the 2022 season.
Now, he seems fully determined to keep the momentum going despite being banged up.
In the end, it may end up that the biggest factor in whether Tagovailoa can play will be the shortened week that the Dolphins are currently dealing with. It’s tough for any NFL player to play on Sunday and turn around four days later for a Thursday night matchup.
The silver lining there is that after the Dolphins play on Thursday, they will get what is considered to be a mini-bye week. They won’t play again until an Oct. 9 matchup versus the New York Jets.
