At halftime on Sunday, the Miami Dolphins had a four-point lead over the Los Angeles Chargers. A short field goal from Riley Patterson on the final play of the first half gave the Dolphins a 13-9 lead heading into the locker room. It was a surprising scoreline, given how Miami’s season to date, but it gave hope to the fans at Hard Rock Stadium that perhaps Mike McDaniel’s team was going to deliver a shocker in the early slate.
But after surrendering 17 unanswered points over the third quarter into the start of the fourth, the Dolphins suddenly found themselves on the wrong end of a 26-13 game. Miami scored a pair of touchdowns in the fourth quarter, the second one coming with under a minute left to take a one-point lead, but the Dolphins gave up a field goal with just seconds remaining to end up losing 29-27.
And drop to 1-5 on the season.
After the loss, quarterback Tua Tagovailoa did not mince words.
Speaking with the media, Tagovailoa painted a picture of dysfunction, highlighting how players have been showing up late to meetings and even skipping them entirely.
And he pointed the finger at “leadership.”
”I think it starts with the leadership and helping articulate that for the guys and what we’re expecting out of the guys,” Tagovailoa began. ‘We’re expecting this, are we getting that? Are we not getting that?
“We have guys showing up to players-only meetings late, guys not showing up to player-only meetings,” he continued. “There’s a lot that goes into that. Do we have to make this mandatory? Do we not have to make this mandatory?
“It’s a lot of things of that nature that we got to get cleaned up. It starts with the little things like that.”
During his own media session, McDaniel indicated that Tagovailoa was “clearly … sending a message” to some of his teammates:
Will that message be heard? Or has time already run out in Miami?
