Despite paying Tua Tagovailoa over $50 million a year to be their quarterback, the Miami Dolphins have decided to stop doing that for the final three weeks of the 2025 season. The being their quarterback part, not the paying part.
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After a loss dropped the Dolphins to 6-8 and out of playoff contention in Week 15, Miami decided to bench Tua in favor of seventh-round rookie Quinn Ewers. And it’s not like the benching was completely unwarranted. Tagovailoa has thrown 15 interceptions this season, tied for the most in the NFL.
With all the drama considered, many are now revisiting and re-examining a certain tiff between the QB and his first NFL head coach, Brian Flores.
Now the defensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings, Flores was reportedly too hard on Tagovailoa in Miami. The QB called him a “terrible person,” adding that Flores told the QB he “sucked” every day. Well, Hall of Famer Cris Carter believes Flores was sending the right message, but to the wrong ears.
“The coach was saying the right stuff in the quarterback’s ear, Tua [Tagovailoa]. But Brian Flores, they got rid of him. But now we come back three or four years later, everything Brian Flores said about Tua is true. Now he’s in street clothes, now he’s out there like me,” Carter said on his podcast, Fully Loaded.
Carter also talked about how it wasn’t just anyone replacing Tagovailoa under center: it was a guy who was drafted in the seventh round. Ewers was also the 13th and final QB selected in the draft.
“If I come to my job, and Quinn Ewers is in my desk one day, something’s gonna happen. I’m getting ready to go postal, for real. Because it says something about me, man! … And guess what, they don’t even want me to be the backup, I’m the emergency!” said the former wideout.
Back in 2020-2021, when Flores and Tagovailoa shared the watch in Miami, things weren’t going well between the head coach and quarterback, despite the fact that Flores was part of the group that drafted the Alabama standout.
Flores was fired in early 2022, and it’s widely believed that his issues with Tagovailoa were a big part of the reason. A couple of years after that, Tagovailoa did his infamous interview slamming Flores:
“If you woke up every morning, and I told you that you suck at what you did, that you don’t belong doing what you do, that you shouldn’t be here, that this guy should be here, that you haven’t earned this right… And then you have somebody else (new coach Mike McDaniel) come in and tell you, ‘Dude, you are the best fit for this. You are accurate, you are the best whatever, you are this, you are that.'” Tua said.
Flores responded to that with a presser of his own during which he was flanked by two veteran Vikings defenders. Flores accepted Tagovailoa’s evaluation and vowed to be better, but also acknowledged that he does have high standards.
“Look, I’m human. So, that hit me in a way that I wouldn’t say was positive for me. But at the same time, I’ve got to use that and say, ‘Hey, how can I grow from that, or how can I be better?’ And that’s really where I’m at from that standpoint,” Flores said, adding,
“Do I feel like that’s me? No. But how can I grow from that situation and create a world where that’s not the case, where anyone says that about Brian Flores? When asked if he saw their relationship the way Tagovailoa did, Flores said that he believes making corrections is a big part of coaching… I’m always going to correct, I’m always going to have a high standard.”
Tagovailoa had a Pro Bowl season in 2023, but it seems that in the end, he was not of the franchise QB variety. So the Dolphins could have saved a few years and a few hundred million dollars taking Flores’ side rather than their QB’s back in 2022.
