Give Brian Flores a round of applause for being unpredictable.
When it made total sense to bench Ryan Fitzpatrick and start rookie first-round pick Tua Tagovailoa _ namely, after Fitz threw two interceptions without a touchdown and hurt the Dolphins in a loss to Seattle _ the coach stuck with his beloved veteran quarterback.
Flores staunchly defended Fitzpatrick and flat-out said Tagovailoa "isn't ready" to be the Miami Dolphins starting quarterback. That was two weeks ago.
But now that Fitzpatrick has since recovered, has helped the Dolphins to two consecutive victories, including a stirring upset of the 49ers in Santa Clara, California, and the team seems to be finding its footing at 3-3, here we go ...
The Dolphins are inserting Tagovailoa as their new starting quarterback.
Lordy!
Here is explanation for this: Flores now believes Tagovailoa over Fitzpatrick is in the best interest of the team and gives the Dolphins their best chance for success.
That's it.
That's all.
Because so far during his 22-game tenure as Dolphins coach, even through his 8-14 record, Flores has been laser focused on only one thing: Doing what's in the best interest of the team so he can field a winner.
Long-term vision? Not so much. Flores has always been about winning the next repetition, the next practice, the next game.
And yet, this decision, as first reported by ESPN and confirmed by the Herald, is every bit about long view as any Flores has ever made in Miami. It's as much about tomorrow as today.
How?
It's about Tagovailoa's first start against the Los Angeles Rams at Hard Rock Stadium on Nov. 1 and the four or five years Tagovailoa is certain to be contractually tied to the Dolphins after that.
The Dolphins are saying they are ready to start the Tua era now, even if that means he will be facing the NFL's best defensive player in Aaron Donald the next time he steps on the field. And they're saying they're ready to let the quarterback sink or swim against that and any other competition going forward for the rest of this season.
And make no mistake: This call is planned as being permanent because the worst thing anyone can do to a highly prized franchise-quarterback-in-the-making is start him. Then bench him. Then start him again later.
That approach has failed multiple times in the NFL. It needs to be avoided here.
The decision to start Tagovailoa _ made primarily between Flores and general manager Chris Grier _ had been planned for a while. They knew they wanted to get him starts this season and planned to do so after Miami's bye, I'm told.
The question was timing. Always timing.
The timing here is interesting, aside from it coming while the team is succeeding, in that Miami's original bye was scheduled for Week 11. But the NFL changed that because Covid-19 forced the league to juggle the schedule, giving the Dolphins their bye this weekend instead.
So here we are. Maybe earlier than the Dolphins expected, yes. But still in time for Tagovailoa to take all the first-team repetitions he needs to take in practice this week through Wednesday. He can then stay around the club facility to study through the weekend. And he can come back next week to get all the first-team practice reps leading up to the Rams game.
And, yes, Tagovailoa needs the work. Because even Tuesday morning, Dolphins offensive coordinator Chan Gailey painted a picture of Tagovailoa that did not suggest he's ready to take over.
"He's been thrown into a very difficult situation in that he didn't have any preseason. He didn't have really an offseason," Gailey said when I asked what specifically Tagovailoa needed to improve.
"But, you know, everything in the overall understanding of what we're trying to get done. I mean I think he has a basic understanding of it. But you don't get the specifics if you don't get out there.
"The specifics of things and feeling the speed of the game and all that kind of stuff is hard. So hopefully, you know, as time goes on we can continue to have him develop and see how quickly he can get ready to play whenever that might be."
This portrait of how ready Tagovailoa is to succeed is not exactly encouraging if you take into account he has only a "basic understanding" of what the Miami offense is trying to accomplish. But the kid's got to play sometime, no?
Justin Herbert, picked in the first round behind Tagovailoa, is playing.
Joe Burrow, picked No. 1 overall, is playing.
Neither of them had a preseason. Neither had a typical NFL offseason. So why not Tagovailoa?
The decision to make this change now came as a surprise to Fitzpatrick. I'm told he accepts the call (he has no choice) but doesn't necessarily love the call.
And yet, good soldier that he is, he will not complain about the call publicly.
Fitz didn't like it last year when he was benched in favor of Josh Rosen but didn't complain. He's not going to complain now because what would that accomplish?
Fitzpatrick is a great teammate. He's a team leader. He's fun.
But one supposes the Dolphins never lost sight of the fact he's a placeholder. I know the Miami personnel department definitely did not.
He's good enough to get the Dolphins to maybe 8-8. But it was a long shot to believe Fitzpatrick would lead the Dolphins into the playoffs _ because he has never done that for any team in his 15 previous NFL seasons.
This team needed to look at someday being much, much better and way more relevant than playing .500 ball.
And so, the Tua Tagovailoa era begins.
It's going to be fascinating to watch.
