In the Miami Dolphins’ 24-3 loss, quarterback Skylar Thompson, who was starting in the place of Tua Tagovailoa, suffered a rib injury that ended his day in the third quarter. After the game, coach Mike McDaniel called it a “pretty painful” issue and said that the team will have more answers about its severity Monday.
Regardless of what further tests show, it doesn’t look like the Dolphins can’t afford to have Thompson in the starting lineup any longer.
The third-year passer looked overwhelmed by the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday and struggled to get the Miami offense on track. After starting his day with a 22-yard pass to De’Von Achane, he didn’t record another 20-yard play all game. In fact, he only threw one pass more than 20 yards past the line of scrimmage and it wasn’t even close to his intended receiver.
Thompson was eventually replaced in the game by Tim Boyle, who fared better with 79 yards on his 13 pass attempts. But are the Dolphins really going to start Boyle, a sixth-year passer with four touchdowns and 12 interceptions in his career? Tyreek Hill doesn’t sound opposed to the idea.
“I like Tim Boyle, man,” Hill said Sunday after the loss. “He came into the huddle with a certain swagger about himself. It was different. Every quarterback has a different demeanor about themselves. With Tim, there’s something about him. He came in, we got it going a little bit and it was special.”
It’d be understandable if Dolphins fans, who just last year watched Jévon Holland return a Boyle interception 99 yards for a touchdown, aren’t as convinced.
So is Tyler Huntley the answer? The Dolphins signed him off the Baltimore Ravens’ practice squad, but listed him as an emergency third quarterback Sunday as he’d only been on the roster for a few days leading up to the matchup.
While Huntley has a (dubious) Pro Bowl nod under his belt, he also has just eight career touchdown passes with seven interceptions in 20 games and nine starts.
Perhaps McDaniel could find a way to utilize Huntley’s mobility to jumpstart the Dolphins offense, but temporarily redesigning the Miami offense to accommodate his skills may be too much to ask.
There are other options on the free agency market and the Dolphins could hunt for a passer in a trade. But the team isn’t going to find much if its simply looking for a temporary band-aid to hold down the fort for a few more weeks until Tagovailoa returns.
And that leads us to the likeliest solution: the Dolphins probably won’t do much of anything.
Miami’s 2024 hopes are tied to Tagovailoa and their list of bad options at quarterback are the same options they’ll try to squeeze some wins from in the next few weeks.
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