Thursday night was another scary night. Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa suffered another concussion in a loss to the Buffalo Bills, leaving him in a state of extreme vulnerability on a national level on multiple occasions.

Tagovailoa needs to miss some time. For his own health, for the health of his family, and so he can have some serious time to figure out what’s next for his career. Since the 2022 season, he’s suffered three diagnosed concussions — plus another blow to the head that ultimately led the league to change its safety protocols — and this level of severity only makes him more susceptible to more of them in the future. That’s a fact he, the Dolphins, and his loved ones are having to grapple with behind closed doors.

Unfortunately for the Dolphins, there’s also the cold, hard truth: the season doesn’t stop for anyone and they need to find a viable option – fast.

Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel spoke about the possibility of adding another quarterback during his press conference Friday morning.

“That started late last night,” McDaniel said. “I think the best way to describe where we’re at is the team and the organization has a lot of confidence in (reserve quarterback) Skylar Thompson. … That being said, we’re going to bring somebody in.”

The Dolphins have already seen Skylar Thompson’s show, and it’s not pretty. Thompson appears largely outclassed at the NFL level, which won’t help a team that’s now facing an uphill battle in its own division.

There aren’t many options at this point in the season. Miami could sign former Dolphin Ryan Tannehill, who is currently a free agent. He’s likely the only realistic starting option on the market. Outside of him, the Dolphins are likely looking at Brian Hoyer, Blaine Gabbert and AJ McCarron as potential upgrades to their backup QB situation. A better option might be to trade for a backup like Jameis Winston or Russell Wilson to stabilize that position, but it takes two to tango. Here are the options. It’s Week 2 of the regular season. It shouldn’t be pretty.

This Dolphins team is built to win now, and it’s hard to just throw away a big chunk of the season to Thompson when no one on the planet knows when, or if, Tagovailoa will be back on the field. In fact, McDaniel said Friday morning he’s not putting a timetable on it.

Two things can be true at once: The Dolphins can have love, respect and deep concern for Tagovailoa, because they’re giving him the bandwidth to make a decision about his professional future — and they also need to come up with a Plan B in record time. As Thursday night showed, the Bills are now way ahead of the Dolphins, and they can’t afford to lose any games if they still want a shot at catching Buffalo for the AFC East crown.

Through it all, it’s important to note that McDaniel seemed to be primarily concerned about Tagovailoa’s health, which is objectively the most important part of all of this. There will be a million more NFL games in the years to come, but Tagovailoa only has one shot to make sure his post-football life is as healthy and fulfilling as possible.

“I’m not going to do anything to make things worse or hurt any of our players,” McDaniel said. “There are a lot of people who have a personal interest in the Miami Dolphins, but to question timelines — that creates fear.”

McDaniel also felt that speculating about Tagovailoa’s future at this point isn’t in his best interest, which is true. Tagovailoa just needs to get healthy first, no matter how long that takes.

This is a mess for the Dolphins, but the priorities couldn’t be clearer: give Tagovailoa the time he needs to recover and make a decision, And immediately find a backup quarterback that will give them a chance to win a few games.