.jpg?h=920929c4&itok=EG-p4Kob)
2 weeks Ago By Sean Labar
Tua Tagovailoa has endured and overcome as much adversity as any NFL player has during their career — and yet on Thanksgiving Day — he has a chance to walk into Lambeau Field and lead the Miami Dolphins to a fourth-straight win. While Miami’s path to the playoffs will be a massive uphill climb, it all starts with finding a way to win on the frozen tundra in Green Bay, which won’t be an easy feat. The Packers (8-3) are one of the best teams in the NFC so far in 2024 and they are one of the handful of NFL squads that have a significant home field advantage.
Lambeau Field sits in the middle of a neighborhood and there are no skyscrapers or city lights in site. The people there are stakeholders of the team and they live and breathe Packers’ football. There’s no denying Tagovailoa’s accomplishment to return from a concussion where his career appeared to be in jeopardy and has led the Dolphins to three-straight wins, while ranking No.
2 in the NFL in passer rating over that period. He single handedly turned Mike McDaniels’ offense around as the unit ranked dead last in the NFL when Miami’s starting QB was out with the concussion. Last week in the dominating win over the Patriots.
Tagovailoa threw for four touchdowns, so he’s’ playing at a high level and heading into Green Bay with confidence. But there’s an ongoing narrative that can’t escape him or the Dolphins with the forecast set to be in the 20’s when kickoff rolls around on Thanksgiving day. In games with a kickoff temperature of 40 or colder, the Miami Dolphins have lost 11 in a row dating to an overtime victory at Buffalo on Christmas Eve 2016, according to Stathead.
Tagovailoa is (0-7) in games where the temperature is under 45 degrees. During the Mike McDaniel era the Dolphins are 0-5 in cold-weather games, including a 26-7 loss at Kansas City in last year’s playoffs, when it was a brutal minus-4 at kickoff. But Nick Hicks, who works as a personal trainer for Tagovailoa says the narrative surrounding Miami’s struggles in cold weather is “ridiculous .
” He posted on X on Wednesday, roughly 24 hours before Miami is set to kickoff on the frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field. The entire narrative that The Miami Dolphins can’t play in the cold is so ridiculous. This is not a team that was born and raised in South Florida.
It’s not a HS team traveling up north to play a game. These grown men grew up all over the country and played college ball at cold climate college towns. The reason they haven’t been successful in the past is because they just weren’t good enough to beat the teams they played.
Period. Hicks clearly has his blinders on as the facts and track record don’t lie. Now he just has to hope his client and the Dolphins change the narrative with the whole world watching.
.
