For the duration of the Miami Dolphins’ struggles dating back to the first month of the 2024 season, the problems were spread around.
In some moments, the issues were laid at the feet of quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. In others, they were piled onto head coach Mike McDaniel. And if it wasn’t a single person at the root of a problem, it was the scheme, or injuries, or poor personnel decisions — a virtual roulette wheel of blame spun from one loss to the next. Whatever the dilemma, it always rested with someone on the roster or coaching staff or front office.
Now? Now it’s an ownership issue. A Stephen Ross issue.
That’s what Tagovailoa made it on Sunday, when he did the one thing that coaching staffs beg cornerstone players to never do: He took an internal concern about leadership and responsibility and aired it outside the ranks of the team. Not only that, he did it at a press conference podium, following a spirit-crushing 29-27 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers. A defeat which saw Tagovailoa rally the Dolphins to a 27-26 lead with 39 seconds left — only to see it slip away when the defense blew a tackle on a 42-yard catch-and-run by Chargers wideout Ladd McConkey.
Afterward, Tagovailoa was asked about the state of his emotions. Shaking his head, his assessment shoved off on a downward trajectory that would eventually air some eyebrow-raising details about what has been going on inside the Dolphins during the 1-5 start.
“I don’t know. Shocked. Shocked, I guess you could say,” Tagovailoa said. “Just this is something that we’ve talked about collectively as a team, about being able to finish in games like this where we have the opportunity to win the game. And it’s not just one side of the ball. It’s every phase.”
He talked about not pointing fingers, but then pointed them in all directions — including himself. A lot of it was the typical disappointed mantra of quarterbacks who are expected to produce a lot, but instead find themselves steering conversations about why losing is happening rather than winning. Tagovailoa talked about McDaniel urging the team to stay together and linebacker Jordyn Brooks sharing a Bible verse about being born for adversity. And if it ended at that, this would have been just another mundane chapter in continuing volumes of frustration.
But at the end of his media conference, Tagovailoa was asked how Miami would keep from falling into a “woe-is-me” attitude.
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His response was the kind of thing that should catch the ear of owner Stephen Ross. Because it began with the words “I think it starts with the leadership.” When your $53-million-a-season quarterback utters those words, you get hyper focused on what he says next — regardless of whether he’s talking about players, coaches, executives or anyone in between.
“I think it starts with the leadership in helping articulate that for the guys, and then what we’re expecting out of the guys,” Tagovailoa said. “We’re expecting this. Are we getting that? Are we not getting that? We have guys showing up to player-only meetings late. Guys not showing up to player-only meetings. There is a lot that goes into that. Do we have to make that mandatory? Do we not have to make that mandatory? So it’s a lot of things of that nature that we got to get cleaned up. It starts with the little things like that.”
To be fair here, what Tagovailoa is referencing isn’t the kind of players-only meetings that are called in the midst of a team crisis. He’s talking about positional players-only meetings that are in effect, a type of “extra credit” session. Basically, players getting together on their own to discuss a number of different subjects that can make them better, improve the team’s performance or make them more prepared for that week’s opponents. They are not mandatory and are not at the direction of the coaching staff.
That said, they are a sort of barometer on who wants to put in extra work to solve problems, and who feels like the status quo is enough. And the on-time attendance — or lack thereof — is apparently enough to bother Tagovailoa. Informationally, it can be digested a number of different ways. Clearly, some players on the roster feel like more is required to put this season back together. And some are noticing who is willing or not willing to show up for that effort. Maybe Tagovailoa purposely separated himself from some of his teammates by stating it at a podium after a loss. Or maybe he felt airing the detail was necessary to get some kind of action from the roster leaders or the coaching staff.
But the point is that he said it. Not just quietly, to McDaniel. Not just in a meeting with Ross. Instead, he said it to everyone outside of the walls of the facility. And if you’re Ross, that should be a bat signal beckoning him to roll up his sleeves and find out what’s happening inside his team. Clearly, there’s a disconnect somewhere inside the operation. Your quarterback just told you as much. Now you need to do something about it. Especially with the NFL trade deadline coming on Nov. 4, which is ample opportunity to jettison anyone who isn’t pulling their weight in a season that is already looking lost.
Ross now has to face facts. His Dolphins are 1-5. They just lost a game to a still-rising quarterback in the Chargers’ Justin Herbert, who was selected one pick after Tagovailoa in the 2020 NFL Draft. Miami’s lone victory this season is against a winless New York Jets franchise that is arguably the only team in the league with more problems than the Dolphins right now. There’s a virtual guarantee McDaniel is en route to his worst finish as a head coach, marking two straight regression seasons after going 11-6 in 2023. And with the trade deadline drawing closer, the Dolphins don’t look just like a potential salary-bloated seller — they look like a carcass that washed up on South Beach.
This has to be a pivot point if most of the franchise — or maybe just parts of it — are still salvageable. If McDaniel has become a leader that the team won’t follow, there’s no reason to drag him through the rest of 2025 only to fire him in January. If Tagovailoa’s play (and most especially his turnovers) have become an anchor that can’t be overcome, then it’s time to start planning for a total reboot and an admission of a contract mistake that’s somewhere in the neighborhood of Russell Wilson or Deshaun Watson. If it’s a wider cast of players who are showing everyone else they aren’t interested in doing the extra work necessary to turn Miami into the right direction, then it’s time to begin a massive overhaul.
In most situations like this, it’s not just one player or one coach. It’s a combination of several actors who will never unify a team and make it more than just the sum of its parts. Look at some of the franchises that have gotten themselves on track this season and trace back some of the hard decisions that had to be made. When the Denver Broncos ran into a brick wall, it was driven by Wilson and Nathaniel Hackett in unison. For the Indianapolis Colts, it was quarterback Anthony Richardson and some smaller parts. For the New England Patriots and Jacksonville Jaguars, it was the previous coaching staffs. The Seattle Seahawks? Again, a case of the coach and quarterback.
When all of those franchises were at their lowest points in recent years, it was hard to see what the recovery could look like. But it eventually became clear what changes were necessary. That’s the answer Ross has to find now. Because Tagovailoa just aired out something that usually stays inside an organization. In doing so, he moved the Dolphins’ issues right into the place where there is nothing less than the power to start taking this apart and rebuilding it.
That place is in the hands of the owner.