How the Idea of a Dolphins QB Competition Is Both Good And Bad

Competition, competition, competition.

This is a recurring theme for the new Miami Dolphins regime whenever they discuss the quarterback position, and their complicated outlook caused by Tua Tagovailoa’s regression in 2025.

New GM Jon-Eric Sullivan has described various scenarios for how the quarterback room might look — Quinn Ewers, multiple draft picks, a free agent signing — but at the forefront of his explanations is always the idea of competition.

And it makes sense. Competition is good because competition can make players better.

But it’s also bad.

It’s like the old football saying that if you have two quarterbacks, you have none. If you have competition at quarterback, it means you don’t have an answer already in place, and you’re searching for one.

It’s funny, we’re not hearing about quarterback competitions in Buffalo, Cincinnati, Los Angeles (either Chargers or Rams), Detroit, Kansas City, Baltimore, Denver, Jacksonville, Houston, Philadelphia, Dallas, Washington, Chicago, Green Bay, Tampa Bay, San Francisco or Seattle.

Why?

Because those teams are set at quarterbacks for now and, in most of those cases, for the next several years.

The Dolphins? Not so much.

HOW THE DOLPHINS GOT HERE

This is fairly new territory for the Dolphins because, for the past six seasons, the plan at quarterback always was pretty clear at this time of year.

In 2020, veteran Ryan Fitzpatrick was going to start the season at quarterback until the team decided it was time to get Tagovailoa into the starting lineup because they had drafted him fifth overall, and he wasn’t going to get a redshirt year.

From 2021 through last season, Tua was the guy all the way with no questions asked, and the way he and the offense performed in 2022 and 2023 made it a slam dunk.

The only issue with what the Dolphins did in the past three seasons was not having higher-end backup quarterbacks, given Tagovailoa’s injury history — to be better protected in case of injury, not to have competition at quarterback.

Once Tua got benched by then-coach Mike McDaniel after a poor performance — despite what his triple-digit passer rating might have suggested — in the Monday night loss at Pittsburgh last December that officially eliminated the team from playoff contention, everything changed.

The Dolphins suddenly were in quarterback crisis mode, a situation exacerbated by Tua’s regrettable contract and 2026 cap commitment.

In that instant, it became obvious the Dolphins could not simply continue with Tua as the undisputed starter because his performance in 2025 simply wasn’t good enough.

Whether to keep Tua or move on from him entirely can be up for debate, but the idea that the Dolphins must look at other options really shouldn’t be.

Based on who’s currently on the roster, who could be drafted and who might be available in free agency or via trade, it’s not impossible that the best answer for 2026 could be simply Tua bouncing back and playing better, but there’s no guarantee of that happening.

And that’s why the Dolphins have to explore other avenues.

THE LAST DOLPHINS QB COMPETITION

The last time the Dolphins found themselves without that clear-cut answer at quarterback heading into March was 2019, which not coincidentally was the last time they were looking at a rebuild of the magnitude they’re currently facing.

As they reset their starter that offseason, the Dolphins traded longtime starting quarterback Ryan Tannehill to the Tennessee Titans and also moved on from one-year backup Brock Osweiler to start fresh at the position.

In mid-March, they signed well-traveled Ryan Fitzpatrick and at the draft traded two draft picks to the Arizona Cardinals for Josh Rosen, who had struggled as a rookie in 2018 but still was only a year removed from being the 10th overall pick in the draft.

In an ideal world, Rosen would have developed into the Dolphins’ long-term answer at quarterback, but instead he flopped badly enough that Fitzpatrick beat him out for the starting job out of training camp and flopped badly enough when given a couple of starts early in a transitional season that Brian Flores turned again to Fitzpatrick to give his team at least a fighting chance — a good move in terms of making his team competitive, a bad move in terms of trying to land the first overall pick in the 2020 NFL draft.

As we look ahead to the next several weeks, it very well could be that 2025 seventh-round pick Quinn Ewers will get that role of Josh Rosen — and we suspect he’ll fare much better, though that’s an incredibly low bar — and maybe the Dolphins will add a veteran to play the part of Fitzpatrick.

How exactly it shakes out in terms of who and when remains to be determined, but Sullivan has vowed the Dolphins will give themselves options.

“Yeah, I think the main speaking point here is competition,” Sullivan told NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero at the combine Tuesday. “We have to infuse competition into that room, and what that looks like, I can't sit here and tell you today. We could sign a free agent. We could draft one, we could draft two. The important thing for me to do is to infuse competition into that room this year, next year, until we find our long-term solution that we can chase championships with.”

It’s a good plan, really, one that every Dolphins fan can and should support.

It’s just disappointing that the organization has to have that plan instead of having the answer already in place.