A Dolphins decision on Tagovailoa by season’s end? Slow down you crazy kids

This is going to make me sound old and I can confirm I celebrated a birthday this week, but here goes anyway: You whippersnappers on my lawn move too fast.

Slow down, you dang kids!

No, seriously. Slow down.

It’s 2020 and we want everything fast: Fast cars, fast connections, fast phones, fast results. The faster the better.

Except fast is sometimes kind of unwise -- especially when it comes to making evaluations in the NFL.

Case in point: Drew Brees, the quarterback Dolphins fans like to sulk about most because the team missed on drafting him in 2001 and didn’t sign him as a free agent in 2006.

Brees only played one game his rookie year. His second year he threw 17 touchdowns and 16 interceptions. Then in his third NFL season, he threw 11 touchdowns and 15 interceptions.

And in 2004, after three inglorious years as their quarterback, the San Diego (as it always should be) Chargers trotted Brees out there again to start 15 more games. And, yes, that’s when Brees found his footing and things kind of took off from there.

Today Brees is in a battle with Tom Brady to own the NFL’s all-time record for passing touchdowns.

But imagine, if you can, something similar to the Brees situation happening to the Miami Dolphins over the next three seasons. Imagine rookie Tua Tagovailoa throwing 28 touchdowns and 31 interceptions by the end of the 2022 season.

How many people out there are honestly going to be saying Tagovailoa deserves to be Miami’s starter for 2023?

Yeah, nobody.

No.. Body.

Except the comparable I hear from NFL scouts most for Tagovailoa is none other than Brees.

So what if Tagovailoa, making his second career start on Sunday at the Arizona Cardinals, authors a career arc like Brees?

We’ll have issues.

Because unlike 2003 Brees, today’s Tagovailoa lives in a quick evaluation world. So if he delivers a stinker outing next game like he did last game?

Bust!

On to the 2021 draft.

I’m not saying fans are guilty here. I’m not saying the media is guilty. I’m saying everyone is guilty of this kind of overly quick reaction because we’re all living on this nutty spin-fast planet.

Everybody, by the way, applies to me. Earlier this year, after he struggled in the season-opener against the New England Patriots, I suggested the Dolphins should consider benching Emmanuel Ogbah because he couldn’t hold the edge in the opener.

The Dolphins stuck with him. Ogbah has recovered and leads the team with six sacks.

I was wrong.

But everybody also applies to the Dolphins. They’re as guilty as the rest of us making quick decisions or demanding quick results.

Consider, if you will, the report by ESPN in recent days which states that one reason the Dolphins want to play Tagovailoa now is because the organization recognizes it has premium draft picks coming in 2021.

And making an evaluation on Tagovailoa in his 10-game trial this season could determine whether Miami feels a need to select a quarterback No. 1 again next year because the Dolphins have two first-round and two second-round picks in that draft.

What this says if the ESPN report is accurate -- and no one has told me it isn’t -- is that the Dolphins might see first- or second-year Drew Brees in Tagovailoa this year, and decide to draft someone to replace him next year.

This is not unheard of. I just told you the Dolphins play the Arizona Cardinals this week. Those Cardinals made that same exact move ESPN is reporting Miami will consider when they drafted Josh Rosen in the first round of 2018 and followed up by replacing him with Kyler Murray the next draft.

And the Dolphins, who gave up a second- and fifth-round pick for Rosen in 2019, cut him one year later.

Look, all decisions NFL teams make are fraught with peril. But quick decisions are often the ones that go sideways the most.

The idea the Dolphins spent the past two seasons basically thinking about Tagovailoa, scouting Tagovailoa, studying Tagovailoa, to take him and then decide his fate in 10 games is wild.

Because guys can be one thing one year. And something else the next year.

Take Preston Williams, for example.

Last year he was seemingly on his way to becoming something very special. Big, fast, physical at times, he was Miami’s leading receiver until he injured his knee six games into the season.

Many thought he was a star in the making and he’d make that case this season.

Well, he’s back for his second season but the narrative on him has changed. Williams has three touchdowns but has struggled with multiple dropped passes, including two in the last game.

“I’ve just got to catch the ball before I run,” Williams said Wednesday. “I had two drops I could’ve caught. In practice this week, I’m trying to catch everything and just fix those things and remember the little things.”

That’s cool, but social media has labeled him already. It’s turned on him.

It happened quickly.

And, amazingly, Williams makes plays the next couple of weeks, it will go in the completely opposite direction just as quickly.

Quick evaluations are unwise.

This, I must warn you, applies to more than just individuals.

Two years ago, the Los Angeles Rams were the next hot, unstoppable franchise.

Last year, the Pittsburgh Steelers, under .500 and with an old quarterback set to return from a serious arm injury for 2020, were headed for a historic downturn.

Two months ago, the Dallas Cowboys were Super Bowl contenders.

None of those things are true anymore. The instant evaluations that led to those narratives passed like a vapor.

So slow down you crazy kids!