Tua comes to rescue for Dolphins
Miami staggers Ravens with rugged defense
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Tua Tagovailoa walked off the field, game ball in his injured left hand, and waved his arms to acknowledge the cheers.
“Tua! Tua! Tua!”
And then he stopped before entering the tunnel to take a bow, a rare moment of celebration for the Miami Dolphins this season.
Xavien Howard forced a fumble and returned it 49 yards for a touchdown, Tagovailoa came off the bench and capped his night with a 1-yard sneak for a score with 2:19 left and the Dolphins stunned the Baltimore Ravens 22-10 on Thursday night.
“Any win is good,” Tagovailoa said. “No rumors, no external factors of noise had anything to do with what we did tonight.”
The Dolphins (3-7) got three field goals from University of New Mexico alum Jason Sanders in what became their second win in five days. Tagovailoa — who couldn’t start because of a fractured finger on his throwing, hand — threw for 158 yards in relief of Jacoby Brissett, who passed for 156 yards before leaving in the third quarter with an injured right knee.
“I think it’s tough coming into a game, second half,” Tagovailoa said. “You’ve got to warm up, you’ve got to get your head back into the mindset of going in and playing, but that’s the NFL. You’ve got to be ready.”
Baltimore’s streak of 51 regularseason games with at least 14 points — the second-longest such streak in NFL history — came to an end.
“We just played poorly and it’s because of our coaching,” Ravens
coach John Harbaugh said. “It starts with me.”
Miami’s defense carried an offense that had one QB get hurt, have an injured one take his place, and saw its only trip to the end zone in the first 57 minutes come from an offensive lineman who reached just far enough on a back flip to get the ball over the goal line — only to have it not count because he wasn’t an eligible receiver.
Didn’t matter. The offense did enough, and the defense did more.
Lamar Jackson completed 26 of 43 passes for 238 yards and a TD for the Ravens (6-3) who had dominated Miami in the teams’ previous three meetings, winning by a combined 137-16 score.
Not this time. Not even close.