When the Dolphins visit the Browns on Sunday, something rare will occur. Beyond the fact that one of the two 1-5 teams will actually win a football game (unless they tie).
For the first time in 19 years, a pair of left-handed quarterbacks will square off in an NFL game when Tua Tagovailoa and Dillon Gabriel meet for the first time.
It last happened on September 17, 2006. Buccaneers at Falcons. Chris Simms vs. Mike Vick. After failing (once again) to properly answer a trivia question in which a quarterback named Simms was the right answer, Chris rattled off his memories of the 14-3 Atlanta win, in which he threw for a career-high 313 yards. The Falcons unveiled the read option for the first time ever, befuddling the Bucs’ defense with both Vick and Warrick Dunn rushing for more than 100 yards.
But, yes, that’s the last time two left-handed quarterbacks started an NFL game. A reader planted the seed, and we did the research to confirm that there has been no other lefty vs. lefty contest since then.
There haven’t been many left-handed quarterbacks in the past 19 years. Others during that window include Jared Lorenzen, Tyler Palko, Matt Leinart, Pat White, Tim Tebow, and Kellen Moore.
Currently, there are three: Tagovailoa, Gabriel, and Falcons quarterback Michael Penix Jr.
It most likely won’t be 19 years until the next all-lefty game. In Week 8, the Falcons host the Dolphins — and Tagovailoa will face Penix.
On Sunday, Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel will coach his team in Tennessee against the Titans, whom he coached from 2018 to 2023. Vrabel understands why the media might find that interesting, but he says he’s only focused on what’s important to winning the game.
“There is going to be, probably, a lot to be said about this,” Vrabel said, via Boston.com. “I think it would be filed under the category of, is it interesting or important? I would probably say this would be very interesting, but in the end not very important to our preparation or what we need to continue to try to do to improve as a team. But, having spent six years there or seven years there, I think it will be nice to see some people that I haven’t seen in a few years that helped us win, players and staff. We’ve got a huge job we’ve got to do here as we try to prepare for them.”
Vrabel led the Titans to the playoffs three times in six years, but they fired him after he went 6-11 in 2023. They then hired Brian Callahan, which worked out so well that Callahan was fired this week.
Now Vrabel will coach against Titans interim head coach Mike McCoy on Sunday, as the Titans attempt to begin the process of getting back on track after what increasingly looks like a bad decision to fire Vrabel.
Former Titans coach Brian Callahan likely shouldn’t have been surprised that he was fired. Based on a new report from Terry McCormick of TitanInsider.com, Callahan probably should have seen it coming.
McCormick reports that the decision to remove play-calling duties from Callahan and to shift them to quarterbacks coach Bo Hardegree after a Week 3 loss to the Colts likely came from owner Amy Adams Strunk.
Per the report, many on the coaching staff believe the decision wasn’t made by Callahan, but came from president of football operations Chad Brinker and G.M. Mike Borgonzi, with the message given to them by ownership to make it happen.
On one hand, Strunk (like all owners) has the ability to make any decisions she wants. On the other hand, the best owners trust their football people to make the football decisions. The not-best owners meddle where they arguably shouldn’t.
But, alas, dysfunctional teams do dysfunctional things. Look at Monday, when the Titans announced Callahan’s firing and then delayed the naming of an interim head coach by hours. All the while, the clock was ticking toward the return of former Titans coach Mike Vrabel to Nashville, with a Patriots team that has won as many games through Week 6 as the Titans have won in 23 games since firing Vrabel.
The situation serves as a renewed reminder to head-coaching candidates who consider taking employment with franchises that have a history of curious decisions. Look at how ownership has behaved. Consider how past coaches have been treated. Set aside your ambitions and ask yourself the hard question of whether you’ll simply be the next one, sooner or later, to be on the wrong end of dysfunctional decision-making.
While the buyout is nice, the best coaches would be wise to wait for the right jobs to come open — and to be pragmatic about the risks associated with a team that has a well-greased revolving door.
Titans interim head coach Mike McCoy has worked with quarterbacks like Philip Rivers, Peyton Manning and Trevor Lawrence over the course of his career and his 11-game run with the Titans will be focused on another quarterback.
Cam Ward was the first overall pick in April and his first six games were rough enough to lead to Brian Callahan’s firing on Monday. Stabilizing him through the upheaval of a coaching change and getting him on a better developmental track are vital to the franchise’s future.
McCoy said at a Tuesday press conference that “players and not plays” have to guide the direction a team takes, which is why the offense will be guided by a couple of simple questions that center on the quarterback.
“What does Cam do best?” McCoy said, via the team’s website. “And what do we do best as an offense? . . . We have to look at our scheme and what we are doing, and it is going to change from week to week.”
McCoy also said that there is “nothing like experience” when it comes to teaching young quarterbacks. The Titans will be hoping that the experience of his first year doesn’t make that process even more difficult.
For the Titans and rookie quarterback Cam Ward, the letter of the moment is F.
Head coach Brian Callahan was fired. And, via Michael Silver of TheAthletic.com, Ward’s grade for his own performance through six games is F.
The letter of the future, however, could also be F. In a good way.
“I’m not playing how I want to play right now,” Ward told Silver. “So, once I play how I want to play, I think the league will be fucked.”
For now, Ward’s situation is. Through six games, the No. 1 overall pick in April has the second lowest passer rating for all qualifying starters (67.3) other than Joe Flacco (60.3). Moving forward, the same coaching staff that has engineered Ward’s abysmal career start remains in place, with only Callahan and his father, Bill, gone. Mike McCoy, who went 27-37 in the regular season and 1-1 in the postseason as head coach of the Chargers, takes over for the balance of the season (unless there’s an eventual interim to the interim).
Then what? That next move by the Titans will be critical to Ward’s development. Will they find the best, most creative, most dynamic coach available? Or will the current power structure (with president of football operations Chad Brinker holding the ear of ownership) look for someone who will land in the sweet spot of sufficient competence and muted ambition, so that he won’t become a threat to become the new apple of Amy Adams Strunk’s eye?
After the Titans were shut out in Houston two weeks ago, Ward summarized the team’s situation with two words: “We ass.” And while Brian Callahan thereafter suggested that Ward shouldn’t have said it publicly, Ward made it clear to Silver that Ward has no regrets.
“I didn’t care,” Ward said of the reaction to his comment. “It was true. And that’s how we played those previous weeks. But I think the biggest thing is that nobody in the locker room pointed fingers; we just kept working.
“[My teammates] knew where I was coming from. Now, I could have helped out some people in regards of just [giving them a heads-up that] they’re gonna get asked the question. I could’ve helped them out that way. But they knew what I meant, and they knew how we were playing. So, they knew we were ass.”
The Titans still are. And there’s no reason to think it will change. The wave of partial terminations in Tennessee has happened for too long to not be a trend. There’s never a housecleaning. Those with the power will make decisions aimed at preserving it. And dynamics other than winning will continue until the Titans stumble into a successful formula through a constant stream of unsuccessful adjustments.
The stakes are high for Ward. For his maturation. For the level of support he has around him, on both sides of the ball. For his earning capacity on his second contract. For his legacy.
The NFL has structured the draft to give the worst teams dibs on the best incoming players, without regard to what it will mean for the best available players to have no viable alternative to accepting assignment to the worst teams.
Even when it looks like it has worked, as it did when quarterback Joe Burrow turned the Bengals around in 2020, it’s not sustainable. The qualities that made the Bengals the worst team in 2019 still linger, and Burrow currently has not much help beyond a pair of high-end receivers. The best evidence comes from the extent to which the franchise has become completely lost without him.
There’s not much Ward can do at this point, except wish it works out. And hope that, if it doesn’t, he’ll get a chance to develop into the next quarterback (like Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, Geno Smith, and Daniel Jones) who finds his footing with a much better franchise once he finally becomes a free agent.
