Mike McDaniel responded properly to Tua Tagovailoa’s senseless comments after the Miami Dolphins latest loss Sunday. Now we’ll see over the rest of this season how his teammates do.
A losing locker room is a tight and tense telenovela. Words, direct or accidental, are measured for intent. Everything can become intensely personal inside the locker room if no winning remedy is found.
If there’s one thing Dolphins fans understand in the wilderness of the past quarter-century, it’s how words pack power. Call it Porter’s Law. Midway through the dismal 1-15 season of 2007, veteran Joey Porter stood up in a team meeting and loudly told coach Cam Cameron that he wasn’t fit to be a head coach.
Porter’s words defined Cameron inside the team in the manner coach Joe Philbin’s one line about not throwing on a crucial third down — “I felt queasy” — came to define his failed tenure.
McDaniel did his best Monday to snip Tagovailoa’s comment immediately after a loss to the Chargers about some teammates being late to players-only meetings or skipping them altogether. This, after players being late to meetings and practice was a hallmark of last season’s disappointing team.
“Misguided,’’ McDaniel called Tua’s comments.
That was the perfect word to use. McDaniel addressed the issue firmly, saying Tua was wrong, in a manner that showed there was a fire inside the team he had to put out.
But the coach didn’t put the heel of his boot on his favorite-son quarterback the way outsiders did. Just publicly tsk-tsking Tua told how much it had to be addressed inside the locker room of a 1-5 team.
Now we’ll see how Tua’s teammates respond to it — and not with the innocent statements for public digestion. They’ve listened after the lopsided opening loss in Indianapolis how he wanted, “to see what players come in to watch video Tuesday.” They heard him say after throwing a second straight, game-ending interception in Buffalo that he’d throw that pass “10 out of 10 times.”
When former NFL quarterback Cam Newton questioned him, Tua said: “I want to see anybody on the streets come play QB … I think it’s easy to (talk on TV like Newton). I think anybody can do that. I don’t think anybody can play quarterback.”
When fans questioned him last year, he said playing quarterback was harder than it looked “sitting down on your couch eating chips.” When addressing fans after signing his contract, his first words as the voice of the franchise were, “Show me the money!”
Does he understand how his words project? And the message he’s sometimes sending? Do you wonder how his unfiltered words come across a troubled locker room?
The rest of this season will be an interesting study of what happens under the hood of a losing team when a perceived leader opened the closed door of the locker room and dissed teammates.
How will they behave in a crisis? Who shows real leadership? Whose actions stay true to all the spouted bromides like, “Just got to get better,” and “We have to trust each other.”
There will be a referendum on the field, as there always is in these seasons, of which players stay true to themselves and loyal to the coach. No problem so far. The Dolphins trailed 23-16 in Sunday’s fourth quarter and rallied to take the lead before losing in the final seconds.
That’s not the spirit of a defeated team, even in defeat. Lots of teams handle losing seasons without falling apart. The 2019 Dolphins, that tanking season when Brian Flores refused to tank, came together after starting 0-7 and somehow won five games.
That team enjoyed showing up to work with each other. Flores’ tenacity and quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick’s personality were a big part of that. Last year’s Dolphins were 2-6 under McDaniel and stayed the course to finish 8-9.
Can this team find some answers and remain together enough to not be a disaster?
“They’ve got good players, a lot of good players, but I don’t see ‘team’ when I’m watching it on TV or film,’’ retired tackle Terron Armstead said on his podcast, “The Set,” about his team the previous three seasons. “I don’t see team, the camaraderie. I don’t see the excitement, the energy.
“I don’t see celebrations — the preplanned touchdown celebrations. I don’t see the vibe … and that’s taking away from the team aspect.”
Good leaders realize you can’t always control the scoreboard, but you can control your professionalism and adherence to the locker-room code. That’s where Tua failed. It’s one thing if a rookie doesn’t keep private business in-house and calls out teammates. But a six-year veteran who’s the franchise quarterback?
Tua directed two would-be, game-winning drives the past two weeks only to watch the day fail. This team has bigger problems than Tua. The defense, for one. But a franchise quarterback shouldn’t be causing trouble with his words. A win or two and all this goes away. But if the losses keep coming, who knows where this goes? Call it Porter’s Law.
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