Stop feeling sorry for Tua Tagovailoa.
The Miami Dolphins starting quarterback has $32 million that has either been paid to him, or is owed to him by this franchise.
He’s fortunate to be one of 32 starting quarterbacks jobs in the NFL, and will get to keep that job if he performs well enough to deliver more wins than losses in the second half of this disappointing 2021 Dolphins season.
And don’t mistake it. Delivering wins is Tagovailoa’s primary job, no matter how bad the playcalling is, how poorly the offensive line’s performance is, or which of the fragile receivers are unavailable to him on Sundays.
So, stop making excuses for Tagovailoa, and stop expecting the Dolphins to coddle him or treat him any different than they would any other player on the roster.
Tagovailoa hasn’t accomplished anything in his NFL career so far, so he’s owed nothing. Not even patience.
Quarterbacks raise the bar on expectations and performance, at least elite ones do, and Tagovailoa is supposed to have that type of talent.
That’s who he was at the University of Alabama.
That’s the reason the Dolphins selected him fifth in the 2020 NFL draft despite his potential career-ending hip injury. His upside is what motivated Miami’s decision-makers to push Ryan Fitzpatrick aside last year after six starts, handing the keys to the franchise to Tagovailoa, the supposed savior, who needed game-time experience as a rookie to improve.
Tagovailoa has 14 starts under his belt now, and owns a 7-7 record as a starter, one of the wins the 2020 game in Las Vegas where Fitzpatrick relieved him while trailing 16-13 and rallied Miami to a 26-25 victory.
He’s two games shy of playing a complete season, and so far, he hasn’t won anyone over with outstanding play:
Not the Dolphins front office and decisions-makers, who spent the past nine months pursuing Houston quarterback Deshaun Watson, a three-time Pro Bowl seclection for whom Miami backed out of a trade with Houston earlier this week because he didn’t resolve his 22 civil suits that stem from sexual misconduct allegations.
Not Miami’s coaches, who seemingly are struggling to highlight Tagovailoa’s strengths, and are clearly petrified of his weaknesses, which stem from his limited arm strength.
And not his teammates, who support him publicly, but privately express concerns that he needs to become a better leader, and claim they haven’t seen enough flashes of talent worth building a franchise around.
“Everyone develops at a different pace. I see him getting better really on a weekly basis,” coach Brian Flores said about Tagovailoa, who has a slightly lower passer rating this season (85.9) than he had in 2020 (87.1). “I think there’s still some things that he needs to improve on, like all of us. We have more time. He does everything he needs to do to get better, improve and I think he’ll continue to improve.”
Tagovailoa’s accuracy, anticipation and pocket awareness provide him a chance to change opinions. But let us not pretend that the bar hasn’t been lowered slightly based on what we’ve seen so far, which is Tagovailoa executing a dink-and-dunk offense that lacks big-play capabilities.
All that’s left to figure out is whether there’s more meat on the bone, and if these coaches can get it out of him?
Tagovailoa needs to throw for more than his 6.6 yards-per-attempt average, which ranks him 26th among NFL starters.
He needs to cut out the one, or two bone-headed throws he makes per game, which have turned into costly turnovers in each game he’s played this season.
And the Dolphins offense needs to score more points than the team’s dreadful 17.3 points-per-game average, which ranked Miami 28th and has the Dolphins scoring nearly a touchdown less than the league average.
All those issues don’t rest on Tagovailoa’s shoulders. But he needs to be more of a solution than a problem, and he’s got nine games to prove it before it’s time to find a plan B.
Nine games, and two seasons might not seem like much of an audition for a young quarterback, but moving on quickly is better than wasting years waiting for someone to become elite who won’t.
“I’m not much of a patient guy. I kind of want things to happen quick,” Tagovailoa said Wednesday. “The saying is nothing happens overnight and Rome wasn’t built in a day. For me, I’ve just got to continue to trust the process and what we’re trying to get done here. Hopefully we’ll start winning some games, starting with this week.”
