Amid this calamitous offseason, it was probably difficult enough for other teams to prepare for the Dolphins offensively, even knowing that Ryan Fitzpatrick would pair with his forever muse, offensive coordinator Chan Gailey, and run some of the same concepts he had success with in previous stops with the Bills and the Jets. As many have come to understand, Fitzpatrick’s nuclear volatility cannot be measured on any standardized scientific scale and the result—Fitzpatrick leading the Dolphins to second place in the AFC East with a better points-over-expected-completion-percentage mark than Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady and Drew Brees—reflected as much.
Still, one might argue that pivoting to Tua Tagovailoa now gives the Dolphins an even larger boon heading into the most critical stretch of their season, a slate of games that could cement them as legitimate contenders for a division title less than a year after they were orchestrating a lead-balloon tanking the likes of which the NFL had not seen in quite some time.