Quarterback options …
With Tannehill iffy, signing a faded star may be bigger risk than going with Moore. Dolphins must move quickly to find passer who can acclimate himself in preseason.
All things being equal, Colin Kaepernick looks like a pretty good option at quarterback for the Miami Dolphins now that Ryan Tannehill’s injury status is uncertain.
I mean, what better job audition could you want than his visit to Hard Rock Stadium last November with the San Francisco 49ers?
Three touchdown passes. Ten rushes for
113 yards. A wild comeback that nearly caught Miami napping.
Kaepernick did all of that himself, giving the pitiful 49ers real hope and driving the Dolphins crazy right up until Ndamukong Suh and Kiko Alonso combined to put him down 2 yards short of the goal line as the clock ran out on a 31-24 Miami victory.
The only problem is that all things are never equal. If they were, Kaepernick and Jim Harbaugh would still be together in San Francisco and regularly contending for Super Bowl titles.
Every season is a fresh set of circumstances, with every player and every coach scrambling to find a foothold on a team that has a chance to do some winning. That’s where Dolphins coach Adam Gase finds himself, with a Miami Herald report that he has contacted Jay Cutler to see if the former Chicago Bears quarterback is interested in coming out DAVIE — The Dolphins occasionally bring in players to work out, even if they’re not immediately looking for someone at that position, just in case something happens.
Something did happen this week, and it’s imperative that they explore contingencies. While much uncertainty swirls around Ryan Tannehill’s knee injury, what’s clear is Miami needs to be fully prepared for an extended absence.
Dolphins coach Adam Gase said Friday it’s possible Tannehill will rehab and try to play, perhaps a month or so into the season, but there’s a real threat that he’s out for the year. Either way, it shifts career backup Matt
Moore into the starting job, and Gase isn’t locking himself into that for the long term.
“Right now, Matt is our quarterback,” he said. “We’ll see where we go from there because I’ve got to figure out what’s going on with Ryan.”
The Dolphins felt fine about a plan of Tannehill starting and Moore being available in a pinch, but that’s no longer realistic. Time is a factor, too. Getting someone here quickly would allow him to get five weeks of practice and four preseason games.
If Miami was going through this same situation at linebacker, for example, there’s no doubt management would’ve
already made some phone calls.
“We do it quite a bit with a lot of different positions, and some don’t make as much news as others,” Gase said last week when the team brought in some cornerbacks for tryouts. “We’re always making sure that we’ve got our ducks in a row . ... When you start working guys out, you get information on them, physicals, and everybody’s kind of on the same page there and you can react a little quicker (if a need arises).”
Quarterback is different in the sense that teams are more cognizant of egos, but it’s also different in that it’s the most critical role on the field. It’s not a spot where feelings can supersede merit. Moore knows that, and given how he’s carried himself in seven years with the Dolphins, there’s no chance he’d bristle at competition.
And it’s not just about Moore. Remember that he exited briefly in the Pittsburgh game last year, leaving Miami with recently signed journeyman T.J. Yates in a playoff game. As it stands, that responsibility would fall to practice squad quarterback Brandon Doughty.
The most notable names available are flawed, which is why they’re available.
Colin Kaepernick remains unsigned because he’s an erratic player and some teams are likely turned off by his political stances.
Every team in the league had a chance at Jay Cutler, whom the Dolphins reportedly reached out to Friday, with none interested, leaving him to join Fox as a broadcaster. Former rookie of the year Robert Griffin III? Even the lowly Browns think they’re better off without him.
Maybe Gase believes he can fix one of those guys.
It’s not simply weighing the addition of Kaepernick, it’s the luster of imagining what Gase might do with him.
That’s a big part of what the Dolphins pay him to do, and he made headway with Tannehill last season just like he did with Cutler the year before as the Bears’ offensive coordinator.
Cutler, 34, was thought to be on his way down when Gase got ahold of him in Chicago, but they turned it around. He posted a career-high 92.3 passer rating, had one of his best years in terms of completion percentage and interceptions.
“I love Jay, but I do like the situation that we’ve got going on right now at our place,” Gase said in March.
The Kaepernick option lingers because his upside is bigger than any of the available free agents and even some back-end starters, and owner Stephen Ross has supported his own players’ right to protest by kneeling for the national anthem.
Ross also said recently he doesn’t think NFL teams would blacklist Kaepernick because,
“You know owners and coaches — they’ll do anything it takes to win. If they think he can help them win, I’m sure — I would hope they would sign him.”
Kaepernick, who managed a 90.7 passer rating in 12 games for the dreadful 49ers, might force him to reconsider.
Miami might be the only franchise in the league justified in excluding Kaepernick for non-football reasons. He wore a Fidel Castro T-shirt to a news conference last year and later defended some of Castro’s policies, though he eventually clarified that he wasn’t on board with any of Castro’s oppressive methods. That’s a line that can’t be crossed down here. So not only would Gase be tasked with a reclamation project, but the public relations staff would have to find a way to make him palatable to South Florida.
A training camp invitation from the Dolphins should be attractive to any veteran who still wants to play, even without any assurances of starting. This is far different than a midseason emergency. A player like Cutler, for example, would have a legitimate amount of time to compete with Moore leading up to the Sept. 10 season opener, and that shouldn’t be daunting if he’s as good as he thinks he is.
Several Dolphins declined to talk Friday about the hypothetical of a new arm coming in, likely out of loyalty to the guys already on the roster, but there was an overall sense of needing to get closure at the position and proceed with getting ready for the season.
“We’ve got to figure out what’s going on with our guy first before we can even start to speculate what’s going to happen in that aspect,” said left guard Jermon Bushrod, who played with Cutler in Chicago and called him a great competitor. “We’re going to let this situation play out and then you can ask me as many questions as you want.”
Tannehill isn’t the difference between making the Super Bowl or not, but they’re a playoff contender with him and probably not without him. That’s what’s at stake here for the Dolphins, who endured an eight-year postseason drought before last year. Their personnel is good enough and there’s enough value in continuing to make progress under Gase that it mandates them doing everything they can to ensure they’ve got the best possible quarterback under these circumstances.