The high-flying Miami offense came back to earth when it mattered most, scoring fewer than 20 points in the final three games of the season and exiting with its lowest output for all of 2023.
After the 26-7 loss, Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was asked about the struggles of the offense in recent weeks. In response to three related questions, he mentioned the word “communication.”
“As the leader of that offense, it really started with practices,” Tua said. “That’s how we should’ve got things going, was in practice, with the communication, knowing where we should be going in this loud environment. Those miscues lead to delay of games. We can’t change the protection because we don’t have enough time, things like that. It was communication errors.”
Asked specifically about issues on third down, he mentioned communication again.
“I would say just being efficient on first and second down,” Tua said. “That’s what I would say to that. Like I said, there has been some communication errors and things like that. We can’t do that.”
How about dealing with blitzing by the Chiefs?
“I would attest that to the communication errors that we’ve had,” Tua said. “Am I hearing the right formation? Okay, we’re getting out but we have two motions that we have to use. Then there’s maybe nine seconds left on the clock, and we’re motioning. Now it’s about five seconds and we don’t have time to change so now we’ve got to play and we’ve got to [get] through where our ‘hots’ would be but they pressured.”
It’s somewhat surprising to hear such candor regarding an offense that seemed to be working so well. It was, until it wasn’t. And it’s now one of the various things the Dolphins will have to address if they hope to get farther than the wild-card round in 2024.
Included within that is the question of whether the quarterback, who is at the center of all offensive communication, has to do better when it comes to communicating.
Regardless, the Dolphins are good but not great. What can they do to get there? That’s the real question as the offseason unfolds.