Tagovailoa denies Dolphins’ demise
After the AFC East-leading Dolphins blew a late 14point lead to the Titans, quarterback Tua Tagovailoa shook his head at the thought of the past.
Just last year, the Dolphins lost five straight games starting in December during a stretch that nearly knocked them out of the playoffs and was reminiscent of collapses of years past. Despite Miami’s lackluster offensive performance and head-scratching fourth-quarter undoing, Tagovailoa doesn’t believe Monday night’s home loss to Tennessee has any correlation to previous years.
“I don’t think this is the same Dolphins team that everyone thinks about,” Tagovailoa said. “We’ve got a lot of really good players. We’ve got really good coaches. It’s one home loss this year. It’s not like the world ends because we lost this game.”
Miami had a chance to become just the second AFC team (Baltimore) to reach 10 wins on the season and pad its lead atop the AFC East, but instead was knocked out of the top spot in the AFC after allowing rookie quarterback Will Levis and the Titans to score twice in the final three minutes Monday to pull off the upset.
How Miami responds will be crucial. After they host the Jets on Sunday, the Dolphins’ schedule toughens considerably with a home game against Dallas, a trip to Baltimore and a rematch against the Bills, whom they lost to in Week 4, in their regular-season finale.
Miami still largely controls its fate — it will clinch the AFC’s top seed and home-field advantage if it wins the remaining four games. The health of star receiver Tyreek
Hill (ankle) looms large for those chances, especially with center Connor Williams (knee) lost for the season, as coach Mike McDaniel announced Tuesday.
Herbert out for season after surgery
Justin Herbert’s fourth season as an NFL starting quarterback is over with four games remaining. The Chargers placed Herbert on injured reserve after he had surgery to repair the broken index finger on his right hand.
Herbert had visited two hand specialists after he suffered the injury in a loss Sunday to the Broncos.
He is the seventh starting quarterback in the league to be lost for the season because of an injury if the Jets’ Aaron Rodgers does not return from his torn Achilles tendon. That includes the top two QBs who signed extensions during the preseason. Herbert signed a $252.5 million extension on the first day of training camp and Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow inked a five-year extension worth $275 million three days before the start of the regular season.
Easton Stick will get his first NFL start Thursday night at Las Vegas against the Raiders. Stick will be only the fourth Chargers starting quarterback since 2006.
Mullens next up to start for Vikings
In this unsettled season for the Vikings, Nick Mullens is next up at quarterback.
Coach Kevin O’Connell announced that Mullens, who has made 17 career starts in the league, will be behind center Saturday at Cincinnati after relieving an ineffective Joshua Dobbs last week and helping lead the Vikings to a 3-0 victory at Las Vegas. Mullens will be the fourth starter for the Vikings, who have never used that many in the same season before in franchise history.
Kirk Cousins tore his Achilles tendon and was replaced by rookie Jaren Hall, then Dobbs, and now Mullens.
Browns out another offensive tackle
Cleveland lost its second starting offensive tackle in two days as Jedrick Wills Jr. underwent season-ending knee surgery. He had been on injured reserve since Nov. 7.
On Monday, the Browns said rookie right tackle Dawand Jones needs knee surgery and is out for the year.
No Michaels move to NBC for playoffs
Al Michaels won’t call a playoff game for the first time since NBC returned to televising the league in 2006. While he now calls games for Amazon Prime Video, Michaels, 79, retained an announcer emeritus role at NBC.