I may be the only Dolphins fan who feels this way but the move kinda brings Flores down a notch or two in my eyes. Not the fact that he made it, but the way he made it, and the timing. There was no reason not to have done it already, for one thing. For another, he made a big thing out of doing it on his timetable and didn’t want anyone telling him how to run his team or whatever blah blah. And then he even alluded to the injury, making people think maybe Tua’s hip wasn’t fully healed which was obviously bullshit. Then he starts to look like he knows what he’s doing and the team rips off two in a row by a total of 50 points and then he makes the move!
I know most fans are happy about it, and I am too in the end, but Flores really comes across as somewhat weak and indecisive in all of this in my mind.
I mean, I obviously have no inside info either but I suspect that you are correct or close to correct. But it could be that Flores knew that Tua needed to be in there anyway, but he comes from the Bill Belichick School of I Will By God Run This Team My Way and was too prideful to make the switch when literally everyone in Miami was calling for it after the Seattle game. Then by some happy accident Fitz went out to San Fran and had one of his annual Five Good Games then that was followed by the Jets who couldn’t beat a college team and here we are.
It’s tough to say, but I kind of suspect Tua is just lighting it up in practice like Mahomes was doing his rookie season. The division is in play.
Of course, supposedly Trubisky crushes in practice too.
It is surprising to see the change now given Fitzpatrick’s performance and his obvious position as team leader. But Tua’s ceiling is like, what, best ever? He might have forced it.
I think Fitz had to know this was coming and is being surprisingly diva-ish. If he didn’t, that’s on the coach for not making it clear that they’d be passing the torch whenever they thought Tua was ready, regardless of Fitz’s play.
They drafted a guy in the top 5’who plays his position and he’s been in the league 14 years? If he couldn’t see his eventual benching coming he may have the cte.
I’m in a Dolphins group chat with some fan friends. One of them just said that if Tua does not work out, Dolphins should trade their first plus Houston’s first and second for Trevor
But I’m fine with Flores handling of this situation. You don’t draft a guy #5 to sit on the bench. Giving him two weeks of prep for a home game sounds just fine. If he’s healthy, you play him. Maybe there could have been more communication with Fitz but like you said he obv knew it was coming eventually this season.
one of my favorite recent QB facts is that Lamar Jackson won the NFL MVP at the same age Mitch Trubisky won… the starting job at the University of North Carolina.
I’m no scout and really have no knowledge, but I saw Lamar Jackson’s final bowl game and he is probably the worst call I’ve ever made. I thought he couldn’t throw and had no chance in the pros unless he switched positions. Oops.
Lamar was my #1 guy that draft (which is not to say I always nail it-- Josh Rosen was my #2 that year)-- he just always looked like clearly the most talented player on the field, and he was starting as a true freshman, a great indicator of talent level / projection to the pros.
Yeah I got to watch Lamar torch UK 3 times, I thought he was clear #1. Was actually at the UK game his freshman year. For some idiotic reason Kyle Bolin started ahead of Lamar Jackson. Lamar was put in after UK went up 21-0. UK lost 38-24.
Teams only have to do the short week once/season which effectively requires every team to be on TNF once/season. Given that constraint, I think the NFL handles the scheduling the best way possible: double up the really bad teams towards the start of the season. Which naturally leads to back-2-back NFC LEast matchups.