AFC Notes: Deshaun Watson, Dolphins, Jets, Patriots

Dolphins

• PFN’s Adam Beasley reports the Dolphins came away from spring workouts and practices highly encouraged by the progress QB Tua Tagovailoa made. 
• However, Beasley adds sources briefed on the team’s thinking tell him the team has not ruled out pursuing a trade for Texans QB Deshaun Watson if that were to somehow become an option again.
• The team has enough lingering questions and doubts about Tagovailoa that it can’t remove a Watson trade from consideration, per Beasley. 

Jets

Jets HC Robert Saleh said he is most excited to see how his team responds to failure this year.

“Everything’s been awesome,” Saleh said, via SI’s Albert Breer. “Call it the greatest honeymoon in the world, if you want. It’s been great. But I’m genuinely excited for adversity. Because a lot of different things are going to pop up. There are coaches that are going to find out about themselves. There’s the scouts and the GM, there’s myself, the players, the training staff. Everybody’s going to find out a little more about themselves when adversity hits.

“I think that’s when teams have their greatest amount of growth — it’s through adversity. And so with training camp, that’s what I’m most excited for. I wanna see how people respond.”

Patriots

• Ben Volin of the Boston Globe writes that in a perfect world he thinks Patriots HC Bill Belichick would prefer to allow first-round QB Mac Jones to redshirt for a full season behind Cam Newton. He’s not sure if Newton’s health or performance will allow that though. 
• Volin also thinks a hold-in might be an option for Gilmore as a negotiating tactic. He points out that when asked last week in an interview with Josina Anderson if he would be 100 percent ready for training camp coming off a torn quad, he responded: “We’ll see. If I need to be. But I also don’t want to push it.”