Matt Moore did a respectable job after becoming the Dolphins’ starting quarterback during the 2011 season, finishing the year with a quarterback rating of 87.1 and leading a team that got off to a terrible start to six wins in their final nine games. So if Moore thought he deserved to be the starter this season, that would be understandable.
But Moore learned in Carolina, where he started 2010 thinking he was the team’s franchise quarterback and ended the year out of a job, that it doesn’t matter if you think you deserve to be the starter. What matters is if you can prove it. And Moore says he intends to prove it in a training camp competition with David Garrard.
“I was fully expecting a quarterback competiton. I still am,” Moore said on the Joe Rose Show, via the Sun-Sentinel. “ I get it, I understand and in any case as a player you just want a fair shot to show your talent and prove to the coaches you can win or lead this team to win. That’s all I was hoping for, and I think that’s the situation we have here.”
Moore said it didn’t bother him that the Dolphins attempted to sign Peyton Manning and Matt Flynn and that he “tried to play it cool” when watching the team go after other quarterbacks. When it turned out that Garrard was the only quarterback they signed, Moore figured he would get the fair shot he wants.
At least, it looks for now like he’ll get a fair shot. If the Dolphins take Texas A&M quarterback Ryan Tannehill in the first round of the NFL draft, Moore will know the team doesn’t give him much of a shot of being their long-term answer.