MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Miami Dolphins general manager Chris Grier’s biggest offseason mistake — not signing a dependable veteran backup quarterback — became a thing again this week after Skylar Thompson’s very short appearance in the team’s Week 12 win over the New England Patriots.
Late in Sunday’s game, head coach Mike McDaniel wanted to protect and rest Tua Tagovailoa and several other key offensive starters with the victory firmly in hand. That plan lasted all of two plays before McDaniel had to scrap it.
Thompson and rookie running back Jaylen Wright botched a handoff on Thompson’s second snap, leading to a scoop-and-score that cut a 24-point lead to 16, and prompted McDaniel to put Tua and friends back on the field.
That gaffe, which came two months after Thompson’s disastrous stint as Tua’s fill-in after Tagovailoa went on IR, raised a series of fresh questions:
Does Thompson have the trust of his head coach? Are the Dolphins pursuing free agent quarterback Daniel Jones? And who has final say on the major Dolphins personnel decisions — Grier or McDaniel?
Miami Dolphins Power Structure
Let’s start from the end and work backward. A columnist for the Miami Herald successfully pinned McDaniel down on something Monday that many had wondered for some time:
Who has final say on the 53-man roster?
McDaniel’s answer?
“The great thing about Chris and I is we don’t look at our fine print that often. The biggest thing is when we’re working together, it’s about getting the right answer. So it doesn’t necessarily come up in that regard. We’re always just communicating, and when we don’t agree on something, we work through it.
“I think, by the letter of the law, Chris Grier is the man. But quite honestly, we tend to not even go down that road, kind of like undercutting the relationship that we have, just because we’re working together to try to get the right answer and we’re both on the same team.”
This is consistent with what Dolphins owner Stephen Ross said when McDaniel was hired nearly three years ago.
“He will continue reporting to Chris Grier,” Ross said then. “Chris Grier reports to me and works together with Tom Garfinkel and me in really leading the Miami Dolphins.”
Our take: While Grier is the ultimate decision-maker, he’s also the ultimate collaborator. It strains credulity to think that he would have made Thompson the Dolphins’ QB2 to start the season independent of his head coach.
It was a collective failure, and one the Dolphins must rectify this offseason.
Or .. perhaps even sooner.
PFN wrote Sunday that the Dolphins should not only pursue Jones — who formally cleared waivers Monday afternoon — but lock him down through 2025. Doing so would give Jones an entire offseason to immerse himself in McDaniel’s complex offense.
Will Chris Grier, Mike McDaniel Pursue Daniel Jones?
Is the former Giants first-rounder on Miami’s radar? McDaniel deflected when he was asked about Jones as a possibility during his Monday news conference.
“I evaluated him when he came out of college,” McDaniel said. “… Real talented player [whose] journey doesn’t seem too foreign to the quarterback position. You know, it’s a tough position to succeed at. He’s not a player on the [Dolphins] and, yeah, I guess good luck to him.”
This all brings us back to the matter of Skylar Thompson, who might not even be on the active roster if Snoop Huntley hadn’t hurt his shoulder a month ago.
Thompson has looked completely overmatched during his brief time on the field this year, and his six sacks and two fumbles in 58 snaps reflect a slower-than-needed processing time.
So does McDaniel trust Thompson to do the job, if needed?
“Yeah, I trust Skylar,” McDaniel said. “I think the situation this past game was unacceptable from just the whole unit. I think that from our perspective, I think across the board, that’s not to our standard, from the way we came of the huddle, to the execution of plays, and then to give up points on an offensive play.
“I won’t get into the nitty gritty. I’m not going to point fingers at the microphone, but ultimately that falls on everybody involved, including the coaches. We can’t have that collective effort that wasn’t him just responsible for. My reaction towards it wasn’t strictly based on him. It was more of a tonality to the whole thing.”