In just over three weeks, the Miami Dolphins will open training camp for the 2020 season ahead — and with it face the prospect of building upon a promising “foundation” year in 2020. The Miami Dolphins surprised everyone last season with a 5-4 stretch to finish the season and promptly followed suit by nailing down one of the most prolific college quarterbacks in recent history, plus a slew of new faces to add to the team.
The Dolphins will hold camp this year with fan enthusiasm as high as it has been in quite some time. But amid the restrictions of this offseason due to the ongoing health crisis, can the Dolphins rise to the challenge? We’ll be taking a look at each position group for the Miami Dolphins ahead of the start of training camp and exploring which storylines are most pressing to monitor as the Dolphins look to improve in year two under Brian Flores.
Here are the Dolphins’ key storylines in training camp at the quarterback position.
Is Tua ready to go?
The No. 5 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft is going to command plenty of coverage later this month. And while the NFL has recently unveiled new training camp policies that will grossly cut down on the “breaking news” tweets that Tua is running with the second or first string offense, you can be sure that the coverage of Tagovailoa’s availability is going to be a main storyline in camp.
The Dolphins are hopeful that Tagovailoa’s recovery from a hip injury will have no limitations on his availability from the jump — but whether or not that is the case the Dolphins would still need to choose to give him the start from the jump.
What will Miami do with Josh Rosen?
If the Dolphins were hoping to recoup some of the investment they made in Josh Rosen, things just got much more complicated. The Dolphins traded a 2nd-round pick for Rosen back in 2019 but he’s struggled to live up to the expectations that come with being a former top-10 overall pick. Rosen’s image could be hypothetically rehabbed through preseason play — but the preseason has already been cut in half this year and we may not see any exhibition games at all.
Making matters more complicated is Rosen’s status under contract. He’s entering the final year of his original 4-year deal in 2021 — so if Miami delays moving Rosen to buy more time to rehab his image, they’ll be looking at trading a player on an expiring contract next season. That will significantly cut down on his value.
There’s no easy answer here for the Dolphins regarding Rosen. But the best value he brings is to the Dolphins themselves as a young, cheap backup to Tagovailoa for the next two seasons.
Can Fitzpatrick avoid regression in Year 2?
Part of the natural circle of life for teams who bring in Ryan Fitzpatrick is exactly what the Dolphins experienced in 2019. The man is capable of brilliant stretches of play. But there’s a reason he’s the career journeyman that he is — those stretches are fleeting and paired with more reckless play and more turnovers that cap the play of the offense. Fitzpatrick is a fearless player but that fearlessness seems to always catch up to him once opposing teams get a longer look at how he’s going to play in any particular offense.
The Dolphins could combat this with the arrival of offensive coordinator Chan Gailey — but is Gailey enough to prevent “Fitzmagic” from becoming “Fitztragic” once again?
