Dolphins' Tua Tagovailoa and Mike McDaniel offer clashing explanations for game-deciding play, the latest hint at bigger issues in play with Miami

Mike McDaniel wanted to protect the football and, when asked about the play after the game, did try to soften the blow with his assessment of the issue. But he left little room for doubt about what he felt Tagovailoa should have done with the football.

 "I think the quarterback has to be responsible for it, however, I wish I could just put it on him, but it’s a tough job to do when there’s someone in your face. Everybody needs to do better, and we can’t if — you’ve got to ditch the ball to the flat in moments like that, and that’s what we have to learn from," said McDaniel.

Tua Tagvaoiloa, for his part, was certainly not trying to turn the ball over, either. But he was adamant at the podium that the read, based on the defender responsible for the early part of the progression, gave him leverage that dictated that Tagovailoa not throw the ball into the flat — directly where McDaniel called for at the podium during his own postgame debriefing.

"I thought I was in rhythm and timing of the play, seeing the flat defender go over the top of Jaylen (Waddle) — Jaylen is turning around. I think that was a really good play by the defender, had some color in my face trying to maneuver the throw as well. Ten out of ten times, if we’re looking at that same thing, I think I’d still try to work that timing of hitting that spot, and I think that the linebacker made a great play on that," said Tagovailoa.

Tagovailoa, a team captain, sports a heavier role than any other player on the roster as the team's starting quarterback. But as a team captain, he's also a part of the core group of players who serve as the conduit between McDaniel and his staff and the rest of the players on the team. Miami has doubled down on a player-led locker room with the intent of having the "right" players in-house to embrace the dynamic between players and coaches that McDaniel thinks is best. These parties need to be publicly on the same page.

Tagovailoa's interception has been the NFL's version of the Zapruder film for the last 36 hours. Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner takes exception with the corner route by the No. 2 receiver and its lack of influence on the MIKE linebacker. He suggests that's a much bigger issue than the ball being thrown to the spot route by Waddle in the timing that was had.

Others, including several former NFL quarterbacks, have called for Tagovailoa to see and process that the linebacker is buzzing into the throwing window despite the pressure in his face. In a perfect world, both can be true. Tanner Conner, the team's No. 2 eligible on the play, could have adjusted his stem or tempo to create a rub and force Bernard to break stride. Tagovailoa could have felt the MIKE and tried to step around the pressure to minimize a negative play on first and 10.

Discourse is good, particularly in sports media. But discourse between your quarterback and head coach about what was supposed to be done with the ball on that play? After the fact? After they surely talked about it on the field after it happened before a final possession? It's the latest clue that the parties involved here are feeling the pressure, and they want to make sure their version of the truth is heard.

Two different and opposing explanations as to what the right answer with what to do with the ball in that moment by the two most prominent members of the football operation would seem to be the latest example of the troubles under the hood for Miami.

And barring a massive shift in the on-field result, there will be an extensive effort to diagnose the problem and remove it from the team. The problem, of course, is that the longer this goes and the more these kinds of direct disconnects appear, the more apparent it will become that the problem isn't one single piece of the puzzle.

You've already started to hear some noise after the Week 3 loss that McDaniel has the hardest job in football — building a game plan for a quarterback who can't get hit. That quip came from NFL insider Tom Pelissero on Friday, during an oddly specific guest spot on The Rich Eisen Show.

Among the items Pelissero, who is traditionally an insider and not an analyst, offered throughout his segment with Eisen on the Dolphins:

• "A lot" of the issues Miami experienced boils down to Tua Tagovailoa (with an inclusion that it's been that way all season)
• Five turnovers for Tagovailoa in three weeks
• The Dolphins don't run the play in question "very often" despite the insistence from Bills defenders that they knew it was coming. "They don't run that play a lot."
• The whole play, in question, looked "rushed" and questioned Tagovailoa's timing
• It doesn't look like McDaniel has lost the locker room, or that the leaders have bailed
• Tua Tagovailoa's contract ties him to Miami in 2026, which makes a head coach hire less attractive if they look to hire one
• McDaniel jumps "through hoops" to design an offensive game plan for a quarterback who "can't get hit"

Insiders get their information from talking to people on the inside. It isn't hard to guess who the person Pelissero talked to after Miami's loss to Buffalo wants everyone to believe is the problem. This has the potential to get messy if the wins don't start coming in bunches. And if that's how things play out from here, good luck to owner Stephen Ross figuring out who has earned the right to survive to the next iteration of this team.

The more they lose, the messier it gets. The messier it gets, the fewer options Miami has to fix it. If it gets messy enough, "root & stem" should be the only answer left.

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