Dolphins' Tua Tagovailoa seems on track to begin practicing in two weeks

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who has been on injured reserve due to a concussion he sustained against the Buffalo Bills in Week 2, seems to be on track to practice two weeks from Wednesday (Oct. 23), the first day he’s eligible to return.

“The way that will look is there’s some expert consultation that he has scheduled for this week,” coach Mike McDaniel said Monday, “and then we’ll address the final stages of protocol.

“It won’t be achieved until we bring him back off IR and that first practice is had. Until then, we’re just communicating and everything has been so far so good.

The Dolphins (2-3), who defeated New England, 15-10, on Sunday, are on a bye this week.

McDaniel said quarterback Tyler “Snoop” Huntley will likely remain the starting quarterback for the game at Indianapolis, the first game after the bye.

McDaniel said he likes the way Huntley has gone from managing the offense in his first start against Tennessee two games ago to executing the offense Sunday at New England.

Tagovailoa sustained his concussion 25 days ago. He’s not eligible to play again for another 20 days, until the Oct. 27 game against Arizona.

McDaniel said Tagovailoa remains in concussion protocol.

“But he’s in high spirits today,” McDaniel said.

McDaniel said Tagovailoa’s recovery has been good to this point.

“No, nothing negative thus far,” he said, reiterating he doesn’t want to put a timeline on Tagovailoa’s return. “But we’re still in the process. We don’t rush that process, and we don’t try to do anything that negatively impacts that. So I’ll stay within the guidelines that I’ve built for myself.”

The NFL has said it won’t interfere with the Dolphins’ decision on Tagovailoa’s return.

In the big picture, the Dolphins, in the brief McDaniel era, have never been more relieved during a bye week.

This is the third consecutive year they enter the bye week with three losses, but there’s a huge difference because this year they’re struggling mightily.

In 2022, the surging Dolphins had a 7-3 record and were riding a four-game winning streak at the bye.

Last year the Dolphins had a 6-3 record at the bye, and were coming off a disappointing 21-14 loss to Kansas City in Germany. But things were positive overall.

This year, the listless Dolphins have a 2-3 record at the bye week.

This bye week is a huge relief.

The Dolphins are a penalty-stricken group that’s trying to find something, anything that works consistently on either side of the ball.

And while it’s true Sunday’s victory was ugly, it relieved a lot of pressure and allows the Dolphins to gain a modicum of enjoyment from their early-season respite.

As the Dolphins begin the week they rank 21st in offense (302.4 yards per game), 23rd in passing offense (185.6 ypg), 15th in rushing offense (116.8 ypg) and last in scoring offense (12.0 points per game).

Defensively, the Dolphins are No. 6 in defense (285.4 ypg allowed), No. 4 in pass defense (159.6 ypg allowed), No. 19 in rush defense (125.8 ypg allowed), and No. 16 in scoring defense (22.6 ppg allowed).

Left tackle Terron Armstead acknowledged the Dolphins didn’t play an aesthetically pleasing game Sunday, but he said they’ll take the victory.

“They’re hard to get,” Armstead said of victories. “None of them are taken for granted or are to be minimized.

“We had a lot of things that we need to clean up in order to move forward and get more wins, but it’s always better to correct, address issues after a win, through a winning environment.”

McDaniel said the good thing about the Patriots game was the Dolphins got a victory they badly needed. But he said they must be better.

“I think you have to establish first and foremost that the elephant in the room, we were absolutely going into the game with non-negotiably needing to win it,” he said. “We felt that way as a team and we were able to do that.

“After the game, you’re feeling like, ‘Wow, this game was really close,’ and it felt like we did more, even giving credit to your opponents at all times, we did more to put ourselves in the situation for it to be a final drive game than the opponent. And both things can be true. You can be satisfied with the result. You can understand that the results. I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have won this game three weeks ago. We needed all the stuff to go on, to occur, to kind of grow into being able to win a messy game like this.”