MIAMI GARDENS — The 2020 Miami Dolphins had one veteran quarterback whose heart was broken, a rookie quarterback whose brain had been twisted in a knot, a head coach who evidently had no use for the rookie quarterback, someone up above all of them who orchestrated the drafting of the rookie and probably that same someone who made the curious call to change QBs midseason.

All from the organization that has long prided itself on collaboration.

The good news is this is 2024. There isn’t a hint of any of this dysfunction today. No NFL organization could survive under such conditions that long. The walls couldn’t contain it.

Tua Tagovailoa blew the lid off the entire affair Monday with an appearance on Dan LeBatard’s show, saying that then-coach Brian Flores told him “you suck” — the exact opposite that current coach Mike McDaniel has hammered into Tagovailoa from Day 1.

Tagovailoa, who until now bit his lip whenever asked about the Flores era, held nothing back, calling Flores “a terrible person.” By the time Tagovailoa finished, he had basically confirmed all speculation about the disconnect that took place between players, coaches, management and possibly/probably ownership at the time.

More: Miami Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa says former coach Brian Flores told him 'you suck' every day

A telling part of Tagovailoa’s comments were that Flores had told him “that you shouldn’t be here, that guy should be here, that you haven’t earned this right.”

Tagovailoa was just 22, six months removed from being drafted fifth overall by the Dolphins. Flores telling Tagovailoa he “shouldn’t be here” could only mean — and long suspected — that the Dolphins drafted Tagovailoa over Flores’ objections.

Meaning general manager Chris Grier and/or owner Stephen Ross made the call over Flores’ objections. And told Flores to live with it.

Flores is not the kind of person to just live with it. He can be reasonable when he wants to be — and downright nasty when he chooses to be.

The notion that Flores begrudged Tagovailoa for being Tagovailoa — and maybe not Justin Herbert — is quite believable.

Flores is a coach priding himself on treating players equally, which is to say tough love. That works in some cases, not in others.

Tagovailoa comes across as the type of player who responds to the positive reinforcement McDaniel espouses. It clearly helped Tagovailoa make the Pro Bowl last season. Not only are he and McDaniel a better fit, but so are McDaniel and Grier, McDaniel and Ross, McDaniel and anybody. Flores’ parting shot to the Dolphins, remember, was a lawsuit.

And so …

"If you woke up every morning and I told you you suck at what you did, that you don't belong doing what you do, that you shouldn't be here, that guy should be here, that you haven't earned this right," Tagovailoa said on LeBatard’s show. “And then you have somebody else come in and tell you, dude, you are the best fit for this. You are accurate, you are the best whatever. How would it make you feel listening to one or the other?

"You have a terrible person telling you things you don't want to hear, or that you probably shouldn't be hearing, you're going to start to believe that about yourself. That's sort of like what ended up happening. It's been two years of training that out of, not just me, but a couple of the guys as well that have been here since my rookie year."

The player drafted 13 spots after Tagovailoa was Austin Jackson, who overcame criticism early in his career to blossom into a solid right tackle.

Ryan Fitzpatrick was blindsided by benching

The Dolphins somehow managed to go 10-6 that season despite the changing at QB from Ryan Fitzpatrick to Tagovailoa. Although it came during the October bye week, the change seemed odd because Fitzpatrick had the Dolphins on a two-game winning streak, throwing for 300-plus yards in half of those games.

Then he got called into Flores’ office during the players’ Tuesday off day and told “his” team was now Tua’s, even though the Dolphins to that point had taken great pains to keep Tagovailoa under wraps, going so far as to shield him from local reporters for six weeks. Would this be a redshirt year? No.

“I was shocked by it,” Fitzpatrick said after being benched. “It definitely caught me off guard. … It was heartbreaking for me.”

Fitzpatrick pledged to be a team player and help the rookie, a promise he kept despite the odd arrangement.

“This profession is interesting in that the guy that fired me — I basically got fired yesterday and then my day of work today consisted of me, in Zoom meetings, listening to the guy that fired me and then locked in a spaced-out room with my replacement for four hours today,” Fitzpatrick said. “So there aren’t a whole lot of jobs that are like that.”

More: Miami Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel gives injury updates on River Cracraft, Cam Smith, David Long

Interesting? That’s one way to describe it. A month after the change, Tagovailoa was struggling in a game at Denver. Flores pulled him and inserted Fitzpatrick, who led a field-goal drive but still lost 20-13. The irony? Tagovailoa entered the game 3-0 but threw for just 117 yards under pressure from Denver’s defensive play-caller: Vic Fangio, who was just one-and-done in Miami.

Funny how things go in circles.

For the sake of everyone’s sanity, let’s just hope the vibe of 2020 never has a full-circle moment of its own here.

Dolphins reporter Hal Habib can be reached at  hhabib@pbpost.com. Follow him on social media @gunnerhal. Click here to subscribe.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Dolphins' Tua Tagovailoa holds nothing back ripping Brian Flores