Wednesday Dolphins Notebook: Another Award for Tua, Phillips and Miller, Tight Ends, and More
Along with winning AFC Offensive Player of the Week honors Wednesday, Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was named the FedEx Air Player of the Week.
In an online poll, Tagovailoa beat out fellow nominees Joe Flacco of the New York Jets and Jared Goff of the Detroit Lions.
Tagovailoa, of course, tied a franchise record with six touchdown passes and threw for 469 yards in helping the Dolphins rally from a 35-14 fourth-quarter deficit to defeat the Baltimore Ravens, 42-38, at M&T Bank Stadium.
Green Bay Packers running back Aaron Jones was the FedEx Ground Player of the Week. Interestingly, one of the nominees for that award was Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, who had a 79-yard touchdown run against the Dolphins on Sunday.
Along with the league award and the FedEx award, Tua also earned the NVP award for Week 2 — that would be the Nickelodeon Valuable Player.
And this is what Tua got for his reward.
THE DOLPHINS VIEW OF JOSH ALLEN
Staying with quarterbacks, Tua had a pretty emphatic answer when he was asked for his thoughts on his counterpart Sunday: Josh Allen.
“Beast," Tua said. "I mean, he’s a beast. I don’t know what else to say about him. I mean, the guy runs the ball when he needs to, extends plays with his legs. He can get the ball down the field and he gets the ball to his playmakers. That’s the biggest thing. But beast. The guy’s a beast.”
For those keeping score, that's four "beast" references.
For his part, head coach Mike McDaniel says his thoughts on Allen go back to the quarterback's college days.
"I saw his growth in Wyoming," McDaniel said. "That’s what was really cool was it was an example of young in his career, the guy is a giant with a giant arm. But he had kind of like a stigma about accuracy or something that. I think each year in his college career, he drastically improved. You can tell – which was a big deal to me with him coming out because you learn a lot, not by hearing, but by seeing. And what you could see was a guy diligently working at his craft, who’s however old he is. So fast forward to the league and I think we’ve all been witnesses to he’s steadily become one of the best players in the National Football League. (You could) easily argue he’s the best one. And it’s not because he’s God’s gift. It’s (not) because he’s unbelievably talented. But it’s because you can tell more than that, it’s because he works at his craft. He’s developing every time he’s on the field. He’s a really, really good player that you’ll never, I don’t think, see him stopped necessarily. It’s about minimizing and containing all together.”
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FOR EVEN MORE COVERAGE ON THE MIAMI DOLPHINS, CHECK OUT SPORTS ILLUSTRATED'S MIAMI DOLPHINS PAGE ON SI.COM
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MILLER IS THE MAN FOR PHILLIPS
Dolphins 2021 first-round pick Jaelan Phillips is off to a good start in his NFL career, but he can only hope to be as effective for as long as Buffalo edge defender Von Miller has been.
Phillips said Wednesday he's never met Miller personally but has had conversations with him through Instagram.
And if Phillips ends up talking to Miller in person after the Dolphins-Bills game Sunday, what would Phillips might want to ask him?
“How he’s still doing it after 12 years like he is," Phillips said. " He puts on these pass rush summits in the offseason and that’s something I am looking forward to and hopefully next year I’ll be able to attend. But, yeah, just studying him, being a student of the game. He’s incredibly talented. He has an arsenal of different moves that he can do and a lot of juice for how long he’s been doing it. It’s impressive.”
TACKLING TIGHT END ISSUE
The Dolphins had only three tight ends at practice Wednesday, as both Hunter Long (ankle) and Cethan Carter (concussion) continue to recover from their injury, but McDaniel said earlier in the day he wasn't overly concerned about the situation at the position.
To be prepared for any eventuality, the Dolphins worked out tight ends Darrell Daniels, Ryan Izzo, James O'Shaughnessy and Deon Yelder earlier in the week, though it should be noted they played with three tight ends during their victory at Baltimore on Sunday.
“That was more you try to get in front of potential situations," McDaniel said. "We don’t have a situation now. But we’re very close to having one. (General Manager) Chris Grier and the staff do a great job of staying in front of that stuff. So you get that done on the front end, so should we have any more issues at the position, we know exactly where we want to go. That was the purpose of that whole deal. And right now, we feel good about Hunter and Cethan in terms of the progress that they’ve made.”
FORMER DOLPHINS PLAYER NEWS
-- Offensive lineman Adam Pankey, who was in training camp with the Dolphins this year, signed with the New York Jets practice squad.
-- Defensive back Quincy Wilson, who also was with the Dolphins in training camp this summer, signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers practice squad.
-- In another practice squad signing, the Los Angeles Rams picked up center Matt Skura, who signed as an unrestricted free agent with the Dolphins during the 2021 offseason but didn't make the 53-man roster.
ON THIS DATE IN DOLPHINS HISTORY
-- 1982: This was a bad day around the NFL as the NFLPA called a players' strike that would shut down games until Nov. 21. The Dolphins were 2-0 at the time of the strike and ended up going 7-2 before making a postseason run that put them in the Super Bowl against Washington.
-- 1986: This was the day Dan Marino tied Bob Griese's franchise record of six touchdown passes in a game, a record Tua tied Sunday. Unfortunately for the Dolphins, the six TD passes weren't enough as they dropped a 51-45 overtime decision against the New York Jets.
-- 1999: The Dolphins send RB John Avery to the Denver Broncos for WR Marcus Nash in a swap of disappointing 1998 first-round picks. Neither player would end up doing much for his new team.
-- 2008: This is the day the Wildcat was born. With Ronnie Brown running for four touchdowns and passing for another taking shotgun snaps with Ricky Williams in motion, the Dolphins stunned the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium, 38-13.
