Tua Tagovailoa: âWeâll definitely be better from thisâ

Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and the Miami Dolphins found out how the other half lives on Sunday.

After overwhelming the Denver Broncos 70-20 last week, the Dolphins ran into an offense ready to go score for score with them.

Miami couldn’t keep up, and the Buffalo Bills defeated the Dolphins 48-20 in the AFC East rivalry game at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, New York.

Buffalo’s first two possessions were touchdowns drives – eight plays for 75 yards and 10 plays for 80 yards. Miami’s first two possessions were touchdown drives – seven plays for 77 yards and seven plays for 70 yards.

But while the Bills offense also scored a touchdown on its third series and had another touchdown and a field goal ahead of it in the first half, the Dolphins closed the half with three punts and a lost fumble.

“Ever since I came into the league, it’s always been a tough game,” said Tagovailoa, who dropped to 1-5 as a starter against Buffalo (while going 23-9 against the rest of the league. “Then you come here and play at their stadium, makes it even tougher with their fans. Their fans are great and, you know, how they get into the flow of the game.

“But off of the two drives that we had, I thought that we did really well with our communication in and out of the huddle, getting guys to where they needed to be in lining up and executing. Then with the other drives, there were a lot of communication errors on my part, and I got to be better with that aspect of the game for our guys. Not put our guys in those situations. And then that’s really what the game turned out to be. It was really stopping ourselves on first down, guys not knowing where to go because of formational issues with what was communicated in the huddle and things like that, so it’s on my part to be better for those guys in the locker room.”

Tagovailoa said he didn’t think the Dolphins had a fat-and-happy attitude because of their record-setting performance against the Broncos last week.

“I didn’t feel as if any of the guys in the locker room took it in a way of ‘Oh, yeah, we won by this much. That’s how it’s going to feel the next game and the next game. It’s going to carry over,’” Tagovailoa said. “I didn’t feel like that was necessarily the deal. We did understand and we did know this was going to be a tough opponent regardless. These guys weren’t going to care what we did last week. I don’t think any other team is going to care what the team they have next did prior. Guys are going to come out and guys are going to play, and this is the league and this is how it works.

“It’s very good because I would say it’s also very humbling for a lot of people to be able to have the highest high and then you lose in a manner like this. It’s very humbling, and for some, it’s much needed.”

Tagovailoa completed 25-of-35 passes for 282 yards with one touchdown and one interception against Buffalo. The former Alabama All-American lost a touchdown pass to a penalty and was sacked four times.

Tagovailoa threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Braxton Berrios to cap Miami’s 11-play, 75-yard series to open the second half.

But the Bill scored the final 17 points as Tagovailoa was intercepted on the next series and the Dolphins were stopped on downs the final three times they had the football – once on back-to-back incompletions from the Buffalo 6-yard line after an ineligible-receiver-downfield penalty had nullified a touchdown pass.

Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen completed 21-of-25 passes for 320 yards with four touchdowns and no interceptions and ran for 17 yards and one touchdown on four carries.

No longer unbeaten, the Dolphins share the top spot in the AFC East at 3-1 with Buffalo.

Miami will return to the field against the New York Giants at noon CDT Oct. 8 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.

“It’s tough when you lose and when you lose like this,” Tagovailoa said. “But we’re not going to blink. We’re going to continue to do what we do. We’re going to go back in. We’re going to work on the things that need to be fixed and need to be corrected. And I can promise you one thing: We’ll definitely be better from this.”

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.