Skylar Ready to 'Have Fun' With Major Opportunity
Skylar Thompson will join some elite company Sunday when he joins Dan Marino as the only quarterback to start a playoff game for the Miami Dolphins as a rookie.
Thirty-nine years after Marino started against the Seattle Seahawks in an AFC wild-card game, Thompson is poised to do the same for the Dolphins against the Buffalo Bills at Highmark Stadium on Sunday.
It's obviously a huge spot for the seventh-round pick out of Kansas State, but he also wants the magnitude of the moment to ever become an issue this week.
"I'm going to try to eliminate that as much as possible," Thompson said Wednesday. "I don't really know when that will, I can't say when exactly that will happen. I'm sure it will at some point. Just trying to eliminate that emotion of all of that as much as I can and treat it like any other game."
Thompson is in line to start for the Dolphins after head coach Mike McDaniel ruled out Tua Tagvailoa after indicating he still hadn't been cleared to resume football activities and said Teddy Bridgewater still was working through his finger injury.
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SKYLAR THOMPSON GRATEFUL FOR PLAYOFF-LIKE EXPERIENCE
Thompson, of course, started the game that got the Dolphins into the playoffs — with some help from the Bills — when he led the offense in the 9-6 victory against the New York Jets on Sunday.
"Good thing for me is I feel like I got a pretty good feel for what a playoff game looks like last week," Thompson said. "Win-or-go-home type situation for us. Getting to experience what that felt like last week, I think, was helpful. This week is going to be like any other week for me this season, preparing like I'm going to be the starter and getting reps to where i can build some confidence throughout the week and build some continuity with the offense to where we go out there and we can play fast, with confidence on Sunday."
While Thompson couldn't get the Dolphins into the end zone, he avoiding turning the ball over, which was a key against the offensively challenged Jets.
Thompson is well aware scoring nine points almost assuredly will not cut it against Buffalo.
"Oh, 100 percent," Thompson said. "ust the flow of the game, the way it was playing out. we didn't score a touchdown and that's obviously the goal every time we touch the football. But all we needed was a field goal to win it. That became a reality for me on that last drive. I put us in a position where we could kick a field goal and trusted Jason (Sanders) that he would hit it. That's what I did. But obviously, we want to score every time we get the ball, especially against a team like this. Very good football team. Very good offense, very good defense, all around. Any chance you get to score touchdowns you have to capitalize and do it."
That Thompson finds himself in this position seems crazy if we go back nine months when he was a seventh-round pick with no guarantee of even being on the 53-man roster during the regular season.
"It's a goal of mine to be a starter and be in these types of situations," he said. "You never know what it's going to look like exactly. The way things have played out this year, I've had the opportunity to play a little bit, and to have an opportunity like this this week is crazy. I'm very, very excited for it. This is what I've worked for for a very long time. So I'm going to have fun with it and do the best I can to help the team."
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