Dolphins: "Tua Is Our Starter"
The Miami Dolphins made it as clear as they could Tuesday: Tua Tagovailoa will be their starting quarterback moving forward.
General Manager Chris Grier and head coach Brian Flores conducted their annual year-end media session and the first question was about the team's confidence in the 2020 first-round pick after his uneven rookie season.
“Tua, we’re very happy with," Grier said. "He's our starting quarterback. He did a nice job this year coming in as a rookie with no offseason and the challenge is dealing with all that. Very happy with him and looking forward to watching him progress here over with an offseason here going into next year."
Grier later said he wanted to bring in competition at every position to try to make the team better.
Perhaps realizing he was opening the door to more questions about whether the Dolphins might bring in competition for the starting quarterback job, Grier reiterated his main point after a pause.
"History has shown, it doesn't matter who it is, you need to bring in guys that fit your system and will push people and make them better," Grier said. "So competition, at every position. We talked about that last year. But also want to be clear that Tua is our starter and we're very happy with his development so far."
Tagovailoa ended his rookie season with a 6-3 record in nine starts, with a 64.1 completion percentage, with 11 touchdowns and five interceptions and an 87.1 passer rating.
Speculation about Tagovailoa's job security stemmed not only because of his disappointing finish — the Dolphins failed to score a first-half touchdown in any of his final three starts and five of his last six — but also because the Dolphins have the third overall selection in the 2021 NFL draft and could have the opportunity to select one of the top quarterback prospects available.
Not surprisingly, Grier declined to discuss what the Dolphins' plans might entail with that third overall pick, which they landed from the Houston Texans as part of the 2019 trade involving tackle Laremy Tunsil, or their 18th overall selection.
"I'm not really going to sit here and talk draft strategy or anything right now," Grier said. "The season just ended, right now we're our focus is on the next few weeks, getting through our evaluations with the team here and really self-scouting our team and seeing what we want 2021 to look like. We'll start dealing with that here shortly once the Senior Bowl comes around here in a couple of weeks when we're down in Mobile (Alabama) going through that process. But we're excited to have the picks we have. There are some good players. Again, most of the players haven't even declared yet still, so not going to speculate on anything. But we're excited about the future here and what we can do for 2021."
And that future, starting with 2021, is going to feature Tua Tagovailoa as the Dolphins' starting quarterback.
