It is nearly indisputable that one of the keys to the upcoming Miami Dolphins season is the health of quarterback Tua Tagavailoa and his ability to stay on the field. But one can find few Dolphins fan unwilling to give their two cents on this year’s preseason competition for the backup spot behind Tagavailoa.

When a team is at this stage of preparation for the season, there is still some level of competition at nearly every non-special teams position – save quarterback. The Dolphins are no different as they approach the first week of the 2025 regular season.

The reason is pretty simple — in a practice week, there are only so many snaps a team can take in preparation and the majority of those snaps are going to go to the starter.

But despite the Miami coaching staff hinting publicly at things being settled between veteran Zach Wilson and rookie Quinn Ewers in the form of when and whom they played with in each of the team’s three preseason games, an in-depth review of both player’s play suggests that the decision on who is QB2 should, somehow, continue.

THE ANATOMY OF A BACKUP QB BATTLE

On the surface, Wilson and Ewers’ duel in the preseason was slightly won by Wilson if one were to look at box scores.

Wilson finished the preseason 29-of-45 for 327 yards with one TD and no interceptions and had a preseason QB rating of 85.4. His backup, the seventh-round pick out of Texas, was 23-of-43 for 273 yards, two TDs and no interceptions. Ewers’ QB rating in the three games was 88.6.

A throw-by-throw examination, however, paints a much more complete story.

THROW BREAKDOWN

First off, there is a noticeable difference in how the two quarterbacks operate based on the preseason.

Wilson drops back wanting to find the open receiver. He typically searches first outside, probably because he can, unless the play is pre-designed in the form of something like a screen. It takes him more time to process and because of his late play style, his throws aren’t always the most catchable, even on receptions.

Ewers uses the entire field, particularly the middle. He makes his reads quicker and has ZERO fear when it comes to throwing into tight windows, almost to the point where it could be a concern. He has a lot of arm talent – especially throwing off-platform and from different arm slots – but he doesn’t have the same arm strength to consistently throw outs to the wide side of the field like Wilson can.

ACCURACY

The box score absolutely does not tell the story when it comes to how the two backups threw the ball in the preseason.

Though Wilson completed a higher percentage of throws, the completions were largely made up of screens, short dumps and a few forward handoffs/shovel passes. To be exact, 16 of his 29 throws were of the short variety one way or the other.

In addition, Wilson’s accuracy in general was not as good as Ewers and he made a few memorably awful throws, including three brutal, underthrown screens one of which would have been a touchdown to Tanner Conner and the other a miss on a two-point conversion attempt.

Of his 45 throws, 21 were off target^, 11 of those were bad throws* and five could have been intercepted.

Ewers started slow, not completing a pass until his sixth career throw in a Dolphins uniform. But in looking at his attempts, all but two of his completions were considered on target as were eight of his incompletions.

He threw just one interceptable ball, and that came on an out to the wide side of the field where his receiver could have come back to the ball and the defender who caught it was out of bounds. Of his 43 throws, only three were bad.

WILSON & EWERS UNDER PRESSURE

How each of the backups deal with pressure was also noticeably different.

When Wilson feels heat, his instinct is to flee. Just like his strong arm lends itself to him being willing to look outside on many throws and sometimes throw later than normal, he is a good enough runner that his history leads him to instinctively want to try to make something out of nothing.

In the preseason, he was about 50-50 in that regard. He did make positive yardage a few times when the pocket broke down, but his instinct at times is to go backward, away from the pressure. It turns a sack into a big sack that puts an offense deep in the hole.

Wilson also seems to lack a running mental clock at the snap when it comes to the amount of decision-making time he has.

He was sacked eight times in the preseason compared to Ewers’ four. Both quarterbacks faced blitzes, at times with unaccounted for rushers headed their way. Those are plays we won’t consider.

EWERS PROCESSING IS FASTER

On the non-blitz plays where Wilson was sacked, he held the ball an average of 3.88 seconds. By comparison, the rookie averaged just 2.97 seconds on similar plays.

Ewers displayed his internal clock on numerous occasions, getting the ball out quick for some completions, eating it or throwing it away completely on others, avoiding sacks and living to see another play. He also tends to take the sack without adding additional damage in the form of extra yards, though he did have two memorable fumbles.

On those fumbles, Ewers was stripped from behind getting outside the pocket to escape pressure and try to extend the play, while the other was an all-out blitz on 4^th down where, frankly, it was not a fair situation to have him in and he could have gotten hurt.

PROBLEMS TO CORRECT

Each of the backups displayed problems one would hope can be corrected, but habits can also be hard to break the longer you run with them.

In short, Wilson takes too long to process at times, holds the ball and takes negative plays. Some of his throws are risky.

Ewers processes well but sometimes can seem his decision is pre-made and he will throw the ball into any coverage. His accuracy seems to suit him in this regard and he had some fantastic throws in the preseason, but against NFL first teamers those windows may shrink.

PAST PERFORMANCE

It’s understandable that any NFL franchise would want to put a player drafted as high as Wilson and with the years of experience he has on the field over a rookie seventh rounder.

The stages the two QBs have played on, however, is comparable. There’s no place like New York City in terms of the pressure, but on-field Ewers has had more success that Wilson on the big stage and comes from a situation that suits his transition in Miami.

Ewers’ performances mind you were not on the biggest stage (the NFL), but when the football world was watching, Ewers performed better of the two signal callers in his games. He’s also already shown the personality of a quarterback who won’t be fazed by anything.

In his most recent NFL season in Denver, Wilson sat behind standout rookie Bo Nix and then sixth-year journeyman Jarrett Stidham. He did not play as much as Ewers did in 2024.

So, there are pieces to the whole veteran vs. rookie narrative. That’s not to say Ewers would be better, but there is a little finer line here than one might think.

A POSITIVE PROGRESSION

As each of the three games proceeded in the preseason, both Miami backups got better.

Wilson had a horrid stretch in the Detroit game where he had five incompletions in six throws with two being dangerously close to being picked and the lone completion setting up promising WR Tahj Washington to be completely demolished, drawing “oooohs” from the Lions faithful, though he held on to the ball.

But after that poor run, Wilson started to look more comfortable. McDaniel did start dialing up more short passes and screens, but Wilson was finding more of a rhythm all the way until the final incompletion of his preseason, another brutal screen pass on a two-point conversion attempt.

He ripped a few balls, particularly a couple to now-Jacksonville Jaguars wideout Erik Ezukanma. And though his longest play of the preseason was a screen to Dee Eskridge who nearly took it to the house, he finished 9-of-14 against Jacksonville and generally looked good.

Make no mistake despite all that you’ve read up until this point – the best thing that could happen to the Miami Dolphins is Zach Wilson finds a way to his talent. He has the most of any QB on the roster and as much as most in the league.

Ewers started his preseason with 13 incompletions to just five completed, though we have detailed that many of his incompletions were still good, on-target throws. How he finished however is even more encouraging.

Of his last 20 attempts, Ewers completed 17 and he looked in command of the offense doing so. Ewers came to Miami with experience in a similar offense and that shows, along with just straight up moxie. He carries himself like a quarterback. It’s a challenge to predict what he is going to be in this league but he certainly seems to have found the right team as it relates to his best chance.

It would be fantastic to go back and listen to what McDaniel and Ewers talked about at Xavier Worthy’s Texas Pro Day in 2024 (:54 mark above) and what the memorable conversation was.

And though there will be no quarterback competition this year in all likelihood, it may end up being in the Dolphins’ best interest to find out sooner than later on which guy can lead them should he need to.

In review for this article, the following terms are defined:

*bad throw is a ball that was either completely uncatchable, could have been intercepted, made the receiver break stride bad enough to affect the play or put the receiver in a dangerous position.

A ball is considered ^on target if it is thrown to the receiver in a way that the receiver does not have to make an extreme effort to catch the ball and can continue after the catch, if the ball was not broken up or defender there to make a tackle.