Sports

A 2-7 start for the Dolphins led to a change at General Manager last week and there's been plenty of discussion about other moves, including the possible benching of quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.

Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel has not shown an appetite for going that route and said again this week that he views Tagovailoa as the team's starter for the long run. On Wednesday, Tagovailoa said that he doesn't feel like convincing McDaniel or anyone else of his fitness for that role is what's driving him right now.

“I wouldn’t say I’m playing to keep my job,” Tagovailoa said, via Alanis Thames of the Associated Press. “I think I’m playing to help our team win every time. I think that’s the objective for every quarterback that’s playing. For every football player that’s playing as well, the objective is ‘how can I help my team win games?’ So I would say if you’re looking at it in that sense, I would say my performance needs to be better. My performance doesn’t reflect me trying to keep my job because that’s not the standard I’ve been playing [to] all these other years."

The Dolphins are on the hook for $54 million next season whether Tagovailoa is the starter or not, so finding a level of play that changes that conversation would be a welcome development during a season that's seen little to nothing go right in Miami.

The long and winding road of Marquez Valdes-Scantling's NFL journey has finally brought him back to Aaron Rodgers.

Now a member of the Steelers' practice squad, Valdes-Scantling told reporters on Wednesday that he picked his latest team for one reason.

"This guy next to me got me here," Valdes-Scantling said, referring to Rodgers, via Brooke Pryor of ESPN.com. "You've been trying to get me around since we left Green Bay. . . . He is the reason."

They spent four years together in Green Bay, from 2018 through 2021. Since then, Valdes-Scantling has been everywhere, man, from Kansas City to Buffalo to New Orleans to Seattle to San Francisco to Pittsburgh.

"He's the best that ever played this game, man," Valdes-Scantling said. "So it's pretty easy when you got that guy under center and just being on the same page. We built a great rapport over the four years that we got to play together, and he's one of my closest friends in this NFL thing that I've ever made. He's taught me a lot, so just being able to be around him again and get some more knowledge four years later, I'm excited about it."

The feeling is mutual. "I love MVS," Rodgers said on Wednesday.

It's the first friends-and-former-teammate signing the Steelers have made since Rodgers arrived in June. That approach didn't work very well for the Jets, especially when they wasted a third-round pick for a half-season with Davante Adams/Aaron Rodgers reunion that did nothing to help the team win enough football games.

The Steelers still have plenty of questions in their receiving corps beyond DK Metcalf, who has 29 catches in eight games. Calvin Austin III has 19, Roman Wilson has nine, Ben Skowronek has two.

It remains to be seen whether Valdes-Scantling will be activated for Sunday night's game at the Chargers. If Rodgers has a say in the matter, he'll want MVS to be among the options available to him in Week 10.