{"id":87019,"date":"2025-12-17T19:14:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T19:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/87019\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T19:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T19:14:08","slug":"miami-dolphins-send-former-alabama-all-american-to-the-bench","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/87019\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami Dolphins send former Alabama All-American to the bench"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Miami Dolphins have made a change at quarterback, with Tua Tagovailoa<\/a>, who has started every game this season, going to the bench for seventh-round rookie Quinn Ewers for Sunday\u2019s game against the Cincinnati Bengals.<\/p>\n

The QB switch comes after the Dolphins were eliminated from postseason contention with a 28-15 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> on Monday night. On Tuesday, Miami coach Mike McDaniel said Tagovailoa\u2019s play \u201cwas not good enough<\/a>\u201d against Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

The Miami Herald<\/a>, NFL Network<\/a> and ESPN reported <\/a>the Dolphins\u2019 decision ahead of McDaniel\u2019s Wednesday press conference.<\/p>\n

Tagovailoa has completed 260-of-384 passes for 2,660 yards with 20 touchdowns and 15 interceptions during the 2025 season. His 15 interceptions are the most in the NFL this season.<\/p>\n

Ewers\u2019 only NFL regular-season action came in the Dolphins\u2019 31-6 loss to the Cleveland Browns on Oct. 19. The former Texas quarterback completed 5-of-8 passes for 53 yards with no touchdowns and no interceptions and got sacked twice.<\/p>\n

In tabbing Ewers to start, Miami bypassed Zach Wilson. The No. 2 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, Wilson started 33 games for the New York Jets from 2021 through 2023. Over the past two seasons, his regular-season action has consisted of 23 offensive snaps in three games for the Dolphins in 2025. <\/p>\n

FOR MORE OF AL.COM\u2019S COVERAGE OF THE NFL, GO TO OUR NFL PAGE<\/a><\/p>\n

Tagovailoa joined Miami from Alabama<\/a> as the fifth pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. He\u2019s been the Dolphins\u2019 starting quarterback, when healthy, since the seventh game of his rookie season.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Tagovailoa led the NFL with 4,624 passing yards. Last season, a concussion and a hip injury kept Tagovailoa out of six games, but the former Alabama All-American placed fourth in the league in average passing yards per game and had the NFL\u2019s highest completion percentage.<\/p>\n

This season, Tagovailoa\u2019s complete rate is 5 percent lower, his interception rate has more than doubled and he\u2019s averaging 70.6 fewer passing yards per game than he did in 2024.<\/p>\n

The change at quarterback raises questions about Tagovailoa\u2019s future with Miami.<\/p>\n

Tagovailoa signed a four-year, $212.4 million contract extension<\/a> in 2024. That contract guarantees Tagovailoa will be paid $54 million<\/a> for the 2026 season even if Miami releases the quarterback after this season.<\/p>\n

And if that sounds like a lot of money to pay a player who isn\u2019t on the team, releasing Tagovailoa after this season would be even more punitive for Miami. The NFL bookkeeping rules would put a charge of $99.2 million<\/a> for the missing player on the Dolphins\u2019 2026 salary cap. That would consume about one-third of Miami\u2019s money for the season.<\/p>\n

The Dolphins and Bengals square off at noon CST Sunday at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. At 4-10, Cincinnati isn\u2019t going to the playoffs either.<\/p>\n

Miami has three games remaining in its 2025 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Miami Dolphins have made a change at quarterback, with Tua Tagovailoa, who has started every game this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[47408,8747,123,125,124,8748],"class_list":["post-87019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-_dm96456","tag-helmet-off","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-nflraw25"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}