The Miami Dolphins have begun organized team activities, which marks the first time the team is training together with this year’s draft class.
Unlike past years, Miami’s practice sessions come with a lot of anticipation as veterans and young players will be competing for roster spots at a variety of different positions. Additionally, these sessions will mark the first time new quarterback Malik Willis practices as the team’s projected starting quarterback.
Willis is not the only member of the Dolphins organization who will be tasked with a newfound responsibility on a team. Jeff Hafley is in his first year as a head coach after previously serving as the defensive coordinator for the Green Bay Packers the previous two seasons. Now, Hafley has delivered news that Dolphins on SI’s Alain Poupart deemed “disappointing.”
Miami Dolphins Head Coach Jeff Hafley Delivers Disappointing News
While training camp is still a few months away, joint practices have already been scheduled, and the Miami Dolphins have already announced that they will hold them with two of their three preseason opponents. Unfortunately,the third opponent that Hafley announced will not participate in joint practices is the Atlanta Falcons, which is the new team of former Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.
Regarding the “disappointing” news, Dolphins on SI’s Alain Poupart wrote:
“And while some fans want to turn the page and move on from Tua, the fact remains he was the starting quarterback in Miami for five-plus seasons before he was benched and then released in the offseason despite the Dolphins having to eat $99 million of cap space over the next two years.
Tua’s return to Miami would bring some excitement to the last week of the preseason, which quite frankly is the least interesting of the three because most of the starters won’t play that game and a lot of the roster decisions already have been made.
Because it’s the final game of the preseason, there’s even a chance that Tua might not even play in that game at Hard Rock Stadium scheduled for Friday, August 28.
Tagovailoa might or might not be competing for the starting quarterback job in Atlanta with incumbent Michael Penix Jr., but the Falcons have two other quarterbacks on the roster in Trevor Siemian and rookie Jack Strand. It could be that the latter two split the snaps in that preseason finale.”
Tua Tagovailoa’s Time in Miami
Miami also is not scheduled to play the Falcons in the regular season, which means Dolphins fans likely won’t watch Tagovailoa play against his former team.
A matchup between the two would have been a fun reunion. As Poupart mentioned, Miami made the decision to part ways with Tagovailoa despite absorbing a $99 million dead-cap charge following his release. When asked about the decision to release Tagovailoa, alongside Tyreek Hill, Hafley said, “Obviously, Jon-Eric (Sullivan) and I had a lot of conversations about that, and, you know, it’s truly the situation that we walked into. I think there was over 33 free agents on the roster when we got here.
The cap situation was really difficult, so we had to get in a healthier spot as far as the cap goes, so we had to make some really hard decisions with some really good players, who I have a ton of respect for, and they are still going to have a lot of success in this league. We just weren’t in the situation where we were able to keep them as we build this thing going forward. Hard decisions are made, really good players had to leave the team, and now we find ourselves in a position where we just drafted 13 players… We’re going to be young.”
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