Dolphins may be without Tua Tagovailoa, but Seahawks still wary of offense

RENTON, Wash. — Seahawks center Connor Williams spent the last two seasons playing the same position in Miami, snapping the ball to Tua Tagovailoa.

So Thursday, when Williams saw Tagovailoa take a hard hit against Buffalo and leave the game with a concussion — the third for the Dolphins quarterback since 2022 — it hit him as deeply as anyone not named Tagovailoa.

“I mean, it was awful,” Williams said. “You obviously never wish for something like that, and definitely with his history. I mean, just prayers out for him and his family, you know?”

The news Tuesday that the Dolphins put Tagovailoa on injured reserve means he will miss the team’s next four games, and have some time to assess his future.

Williams and the rest of the Seahawks face the football reality of preparing to play the Dolphins in their first game without Tagovailoa when the two teams play Sunday at Lumen Field at 3:05 p.m. ET.

With Tagovailoa out, third-year backup Skylar Thompson will get the start. It will be the third of his career in the regular season and fourth overall, including a wild card playoff game at Buffalo on Jan. 15, 2023.

That postseason contest illustrates well why the Seahawks are still wary, even if Miami is going from a quarterback who last year led the NFL in passing yards with 4,624 to a player who was the 247th overall pick of the 2022 draft.

With Tagovailoa sidelined because of a concussion entering the 2022 playoffs, the Dolphins were installed as 13.5-point underdogs against Buffalo, going into one of the toughest environments in which to play in the NFL.

Thompson didn’t put up huge numbers — 18-of-45 for 220 yards, one TD and two interceptions.

Helped by a defense that forced three turnovers, he kept the Dolphins in it throughout and led a 75-yard drive that cut the Bills’ lead to 34-31 with 10:53 left. The Bills held on to win by that score, but Williams said Thompson had won over teammates.

“He’s great player,’’ Williams said. “The times he did step in he held the team well.’’

Thompson helped get Miami to the playoffs when he led the Dolphins to an 11-6 win over the New York Jets in the season finale in 2022 to clinch a wild-card berth.

Thompson has barely played since.

He wasn’t needed in 2023 when the Dolphins signed veteran Mike White to be the backup with Thompson the third-teamer and Tagovailoa stayed healthy.

Thompson beat out White for the backup this year, as White was released and signed with Buffalo.

Thompson played for the first time in roughly 20 months when he finished up last Thursday after Tagovailoa left late in the third quarter.

With the Bills already leading 31-10, which was also the final score, Thompson completed 8-of-14 passes for 80 yards and also ran once for four yards.

The moral of that story, as Macdonald will surely tell his team this week, is that the Dolphins still have one of the more creative offensive play-callers in football in head coach Mike McDaniel and a roster including the likes of dynamic receiver Tyreek Hill that many felt was good enough to get to the Super Bowl even if they don’t have Tagovailoa.

McDaniel was an assistant with the 49ers before taking over with Miami in 2022 and improved a team that was 22nd in points scored the year before he arrived to 11th and second the past two years.

“Mike’s obviously got a special mind,’’ Williams said of McDaniel. “He has a knack for it, and he brought San Fran to Miami but with his own special twist on it. He’s always got his little special dial-up and everything.”

Macdonald was the defensive coordinator for two games with Baltimore against McDaniel at Miami, both with Tagovailoa at quarterback.

The first was a 42-38 Dolphins win in the second game of the 2022 season at Baltimore when Miami piled up 547 yards and rallied from a 35-14 deficit entering the fourth quarter to pull out the victory.

The second was a 56-19 Ravens win last Dec. 31 in Baltimore in which the Dolphins gained 491 yards, the most of any team against Baltimore a year ago, but also lost three turnovers that proved game-changing.

“They do a phenomenal job,’’ Macdonald said of Miami’s offensive scheme. “The stats back it up — very well coached. We talk about elegant simplicity — it’s consistent for the quarterback, the angles in the run game, the speed on the field, how they’re able to include everybody, all their playmakers and stuff. They play incredibly fast.’’

Macdonald said the Seahawks will pore through the film of every game Thompson has played for Miami — including preseason — to try to see how the Dolphins might adapt without Tagovailoa.

“Right now what information you’re going to go off of, you’re going to go off of preseason, you’re going to go off of the last game Skylar started for those guys, probably the end of the last game,’’ he said. “You’re early in the year, it’s tough to make assumptions on what’s going to change. So trying to just go off of trying to stick to our usual procedure as much as we can. And then what we think about Skylar and go from there.”

Macdonald said he has noticed one difference in the two QBs — the ability of Thompson to make plays on the move.

“He’s willing to keep the ball a little bit longer than Tua,’’ he said of Thompson, who rushed for 1,087 yards and 26 touchdowns at Kansas State. “Tua was playing really fast and the ball comes out pretty quickly on time, on target. He’s (Thompson) got the same ability to do those things, but I’d say the ability also if you add the extended play to that element, that’s something that you have to take into account probably moreso than with Tua.”

In case anything happens to Thompson, the Dolphins this week signed another face familiar to Macdonald — Tyler “Snoop” Huntley. Huntley started nine games for Baltimore over the last three seasons, six the past two years when Macdonald was the DC. Huntley was on Baltimore’s practice squad and will back up Thompson Sunday.

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