With Tua Tagovailoa healthy, can the rejuvenated Dolphins make a late push for a postseason berth?

Over the past calendar year, the Dolphins have been on a journey that has been both agonizing and exhilarating. Let’s start early in December 2023. After Week 13, riding a three-game winning streak, they sat at 9-3, comfortably three games ahead of the Bills atop the AFC East with the tiebreaker in hand. Tua Tagovailoa was third in the NFL in passer rating (104.4) and third in passing yards (3,236). Raheem Mostert led football with 14 rushing touchdowns.

This is the stimulating part.

Then, a catastrophe on “Monday Night Football” against the lowly Titans. To spare Dolphins fans the minute details, Miami blew a two-touchdown lead in the final five minutes to lose to Tennessee, 28-27. Dying.

After back-to-back wins following the primetime collapse, the Dolphins were pulverized by the Ravens and lost at home to the Bills in the final regular-season game of the 2023 schedule to move into the No. 6 seed in the AFC playoffs. medium. A completely flat performance in frigid temperatures inside Arrowhead Stadium ended Miami’s season much sooner than it seemed just a month earlier.

This season hasn’t gone much better, as Tagovailoa suffered another concussion in a Week 2 loss against the Bills and the Dolphins went 1-3 during his recovery. The season seemed sunk.

But since Tagovailoa’s return, the dynamic 2023 offense has returned. The Dolphins lost Tagovailoa’s first two starts after returning from injury, but Miami scored 27 points in each game, and the club’s expected points added on offense in those two weeks combined ranked second in the NFL.

Back-to-back wins have kept the Dolphins alive at 4-6 heading into a home date against the Patriots in Week 12. Now we’re all wondering: Can Miami compete for a playoff spot?

This club relies on its quarterback play as much as any in the NFL, specifically because Tagovailoa’s unique anticipatory passing skills are tailor-made for Mike McDaniel’s intricate timing-based offense.

So let’s look at how Tagovailoa performed last year in some key advanced metrics, when the Dolphins won 10 games and advanced to the postseason.

All season. Even when he was 2-3 down the stretch, Tagovailoa’s metrics were fantastic. The 2023 campaign concluded with the Dolphins quarterback leading the NFL with 4,624 passing yards, a year after he led the league in passer rating. Despite his athletic and arm strength limitations, Tagovailoa had established himself as the ideal leader of McDaniel’s offense.

Important for this comparison is that their average depth of goal was 8.1 yards, the 21st highest in football.

This is where Tagovailoa stands now, entering Week 12, in those same categories.

He’s been more accurate as a thrower, but game-altering throws haven’t been as frequent (a nearly 2.0% difference is considerable) and Tagovailoa has taken sacks at a much higher rate when pressured.

In short, it has not been that effective.

Additionally, Tagovailoa’s average depth of target is 6.0 yards, the lowest among the 40 qualified quarterbacks.

I make this comparison year after year because 2023 provided a baseline for the level of play the Dolphins needed from Tagovailoa to make the postseason, and right now he’s falling short of achieving it.

Of course, every game and season doesn’t fall entirely on a quarterback’s shoulders. Here’s how Miami’s defense fared in 2023 compared to this season.

It may be challenging to parse the differences here, but overall, Miami’s defense has been essentially the same over the past two seasons to date. More importantly, though, he’s been stingier in non-garbage time scenarios in 2024, which is the best measure of a unit’s quality.

That incremental defensive difference indicates that if this play continues, the Dolphins can lean on their defense a little more than they did in 2023, which is helpful given Tagovailoa’s drop in efficiency.

And here’s the per-play EPA (garbage-free time) ranking of the defenses left on Miami’s schedule.

• Week 12 – against Patriots (29)
• Week 13 – in the Packers (15th)
• Week 14 – against Jets (19th)
• Week 15 – in the Texans (1st)
• Week 16 – against 49ers (6th)
• Week 17 – on the Browns (23)
• Week 18 – in Jets (19)

And where those same teams rank in EPA by offensive play:

• Week 12 – against Patriots (27)
• Week 13 – in the Packers (3rd)
• Week 14 – against Jets (18th)
• Week 15 – against the Texans (14th)
• Week 16 – against 49ers (12th)
• Week 17 – at the Browns (30th)
• Week 18 – in Jets (18)

Tagovailoa and company’s defenses will average 16th. Miami’s defensive unit offenses will see an average of just over 17th. Neither has a clear advantage over the other. And the Dolphins aren’t playing for averages.

Already with six losses, they can probably afford to lose just one more game to have a relatively decent chance of earning another trip to the playoffs. On paper, those dates in Houston and at home against the 49ers are clearly the toughest tests. Facing the Packers in Green Bay doesn’t seem like a walk in the park either.

Of course, Tagovailoa and/or the Miami defense could play better late in the season. A potential boost could come with the return of Bradley Chubb in Week 14 at home against the Jets. Doing so should bolster Chubb’s pass rush, which currently ranks 17th in the league with a 34.4% pass rush rate.

Given how they’ve played to date, the Dolphins will need an improvement in either Tagovailoa’s play or the defense to make the playoffs, especially after the hole the team dug while Tagovailoa was injured. I imagine a race for the last wild card spot. We know Tagovailoa and McDaniel together are playoff caliber.

The AFC is deeper than in recent years. Based on what this rejuvenated Dolphins team has shown after Tagovailoa’s reinsertion into the lineup, I don’t know if Miami can play well enough to go 6-1 down the stretch and sneak into the postseason. I think the Dolphins will make it interesting.