Through five weeks of the NFL season, Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is currently on pace to break the record for most single-season passing yards. But when the star quarterback was asked what the record would mean to him, he replied that it would mean “nothing” if the team around him didn’t win a Super Bowl.
“Sure, that would definitely be cool,” Tagovailoa said, via a transcript from the team. “If we don’t get to where we want to as a team, none of that would mean anything to me. But along the way, if we could get to where we want to get to as a team, and those statistics could follow in helping win games, I’d be very happy.”
With 1,614 yards through five games, Tagovailoa is projected to finish the season with 5,487, just enough to beat Peyton Manning’s 2013 record of 5,477. The Miami quarterback is at the helm of the most productive offense in football, which has outpaced every other team with 181 points scored. The majority of this massive haul came from the team’s 70-20 victory over the Denver Broncos in Week 3.
But while the team’s offense has been historically strong, the team has still proven to be a step below the very best in the league. In Week 4, one week after dismantling the Broncos, the Dolphins were on the receiving end of a blowout when Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills defended Orchard Park in a 48-20 victory. The Dolphins still command the AFC East with a 4-1 overall record, one game ahead of the 3-2 Bills, but the loss still demonstrated that the team has work left to do before it can hang with the league’s usual contenders.
“They made some adjustments, and we didn’t. It was compounding. After the first couple drives it was a struggle,” Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel told reporters after the team’s loss to the Bills. “We’ll all look in the mirror.”
