And then there were two.
The competition to become the Dolphins’ Week One starting quarterback was narrowed on Friday via old-fashioned attrition, as first-stringer David Garrard exited on the same day the team’s preseason schedule is launching.
Garrard tells FOX’s Jay Glazer that the veteran signal-caller will miss two-to-four weeks. “Nothing happened, just Father Time, wear and tear,” Garrard said. “They have to take out loose things floating around.”
Garrard told Glazer the surgery will happen Saturday. (We’d heard it already happened; from the Dolphins’ perspective, the sooner it happens the better.)
Without Garrard, who had been listed as the first-team quarterback in the team’s initial depth chart, the Dolphins will have to get through four quarters of football against the Buccaneers with Matt Moore, Ryan Tannehill, and Pat Devlin.
And unless the Dolphins plan to use the first-string offensive line deep into the first half, they’ll have to expose the eighth overall pick in the draft to the team’s second-best wall of blockers -- unless they decide to give him the start over Moore on Friday night at Sun Life Stadium.