The Miami Dolphins held a joint practice with the Detroit Lions on Wednesday and it didn’t go terribly well for the Phins. Lions’ quarterback Jared Goff and wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown were on a schoolyard playground, while Dolphins backup quarterback Zach Wilson was busy throwing the ball to guys wearing Honolulu Blue.
Tua Tagovailoa didn’t throw any interceptions on Wednesday, but that doesn’t mean he was happy. Quite the opposite, and he declined to rate his performance in the joint practice.
“For a grade, I wouldn’t give myself a grade,” Tagovailoa said. “I don’t think that’s fair to grade yourself. I think that’s something that, well, my assessment, I still wouldn’t give myself a grade. I think that’s for you guys to do with however you guys report that and whatnot.
“I think today offensively was a very frustrating day in regards to what we wanted to do, what we said we wanted to do came out. And we just weren’t able to get things jump started. So that was very frustrating today.”
It wasn’t like they got mopped up by the Jaguars
The Lions are an incredible team. Don’t forget, last year they were the No. 1 seed in the NFC, but were crippled by injuries on the defensive side of the ball. There is only so much water a team can take on. Even after the one-and-done playoff exit, an injured defense and the loss of two coordinators, the Lions are still a contender heading into 2025.
“Well, they’ve made it deep into the playoffs,” Tagovailoa continued. “They made it to the NFC Championship, not just one time. So they got something good going on. And when you face an opponent like that in practice and you get to see some of those looks early on that’s good for a lot of our younger guys. That’s good for for our guys up front to see with how different games can look where they bring guys from inside outside and present their different looks within their pressures.
“So I definitely think it helps in challenging us early on for those looks when we get later in December and January.”
Tua Tagovailoa acknowledges the Dolphins were bad in all phases.
If the quarterback has any brains – and by all accounts Tua does despite the concussions – he won’t criticize the defense’s performance. And he didn’t. But, lord knows he could have.
“Well, some of the frustrating things like I said was, we couldn’t get ourselves jump-started as an offense,” Tagovailoa said. “We couldn’t gain that momentum to where all OK, all we needed was one play and then jump start the offense, whether it was move the ball, whether it was one of the third down team periods, another team period, red zone. It just felt like we didn’t have the energy that we’re used to when we practice and when we play against opponents. So that’s what I’m talking about.”
That sounds spot on to everyone that observed the joint practice. But, are there things that can be gleaned from this experience?
“Well, it’s good. I think they can learn some things,” he continued. “We can learn some things. This is a lot of what they did today. We’re gonna go look at the film. We’re gonna go watch it, see what we can correct and learn from that.”
It’s so early and there less to be learned from this practice than there is a meaningless preseason game. That said, there are some concerning trends around this team.
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