It was an short but sweet start on Friday night for Atlanta Falcons quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who came out to the sound of boos from his former fanbase of the Miami Dolphins at Hard Rock Stadium.
Facing the Dolphins second-string defense, Tagovailoa led a quick scoring drive to start things off - boosted by a quick screen pass to tight end Kyle Pitts that went for 37 yards. The rest of the time Tagovailoa only had to dump off one other short pass to wide receiver Jahan Dotson for a quick 11 yards, then hand the ball off to Brian Robinson Jr. four times. That was enough to give the Falcons a 7-0 lead halfway through the first quarter after one possession.
The next time out, Tagovailoa was credited for a fumbled snap that the Dolphins recovered,
but it wasn't a great snap from Corey Levin, who never quite got the ball past his rear-end.
Tagovailoa's third drive started with a play action dink-and-dunk to Robinson, who managed nine yards. On his next attempt he founds Pitts again, who got the first down and 15 more to boot. Dotson caught the next dump-off for a quick first down, but on the next play a fumble by Brian Robinson that coughed the ball up to the Dolphins.
After just one quarter, that was the end of the night for Tua's time on the field. He went 7/8 for 95 yards, no touchdowns, no picks and a passer rating of 116.1. He wasn't very ambitious throwing the ball, but at least he wasn't responsible for either of the Falcons' turnovers.
We would have liked to see Tagovailoa on the field for another quarter, but you can't really blame head coach Kevin Stefanski much for wanting to keep his quarterbacks healthy going into the regular season.
This article originally appeared on Falcons Wire: Falcons QB Tua Tagovailoa sharp in return to Miami
