Tua, Lamar and More Dolphins QB Talk

The Miami Dolphins were among several teams reported to not be interested in pursuing quarterback Lamar Jackson this offseason

It didn't take very long once the Baltimore Ravens made Lamar Jackson somewhat available Tuesday for reports to start surfacing of teams not being interested in his services, and the Miami Dolphins were among those "uninterested" teams.

That report came courtesy of ESPN's Jeff Darlington and cited "multiple team sources."

This matches what the Dolphins have said publicly all offseason, that Tua is their quarterback, and would seem to fly against the report last week of the Dolphins exploring "all options," up to and including moving on from Tua.

While there are a handful of other teams portrayed as not interested in Jackson through team sources, the Dolphins seem like the most logical to adopt that position because they're the only one with a bona fide starter currently on their roster.

The Dolphins' debate with Tagovailoa at this time should be more about the long term and whether to exercise the fifth-year option on his contract.

For teams like Washington, Atlanta and Carolina to unofficially let it be known they're not interested in Jackson in the immediate aftermath of the Ravens using the non-exclusive tag was kind of odd and brought up many suggestions of the dreaded NFL "C" word: collusion.

There just might be something simpler at play here, and that's the desire for NFL owners to not duplicate what the Cleveland Browns did with Deshaun Watson when they fully guaranteed his $230 million contract — and long before that what Minnesota did with Kirk Cousins, though Watson is more applicable here considering the deal he got while facing a league suspension for multiple allegations of sexual midsconduct.

We don't need to get into why that was such a horrible move by the Browns, but regardless it's made things more complicated.

There have been reports of Jackson wanting a fully guaranteed contract and other reports suggesting that's not true, which only adds to the mystery of why teams would be so quick to let it be known they're not interested without even talking to Jackson first.

In the case of the Dolphins, let's first understand that they legally could not sign Jackson to an offer sheet even if they wanted to do it until AFTER the 2023 draft because they don't have a first-round pick. Their path to getting Jackson, outside of a sign-and-trade, would be to execute an offer sheet after the draft, have the Ravens decline to match, and then have Jackson for first-round picks in 2024 and 2025.

WHY THE DOLPHINS WOULD PURSUE JACKSON AND WHY THEY WOULDN'T

The Dolphins contemplating the idea of going after Jackson should not be seen as an insult to Tagovailoa even though he's coming off a breakout season where he led the NFL in passer rating.

Jackson is simply an electric talent and a former MVP.

And here's a quick nugget for those who so eagerly point out he doesn't measure up as a passer: Jackson actually had a higher passer rating in his MVP season of 2019 (113.3) than Tua did last season (105.5), and he's also got a higher career passer rating.

Now, this is not to suggest that Jackson is as good a passer as Tua — because he's not nearly as accurate, though he does have a much bigger arm. But this notion that Jackson can't pass is just flat-out absurd.

We obviously don't need to discuss how electric Jackson is as a runner considering his 79-yard touchdown run against the Dolphins in Week 2 last season.

One last thing to remember about Jackson: He turned just 26 in January and is barely a year older than Tua, who turned 25 last week.

It's fair to ask the question of which quarterback — Tua or Jackson — would draw the most interest from NFL teams if finances weren't part of the equation.

But finances are part of the equation. As are the durability questions that exist with Jackson because of his playing style, though those probably are not as pronounced as they are with Tua. And there also should be questions about system fit.

Make no mistake, the strength of the Dolphins offense is the speed at wide receiver because there were other teams that got good quarterback play in 2022 but not one team could match the kind of explosiveness that Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle provide.

And when operating at peak efficiency, it's difficult to ask a quarterback to do much more than what Tagovailoa did last season — five games with a passer rating higher than 123 is proof of that.

The question becomes: What would Jackson be able to do with this offense? It's likely he wouldn't have quite the passing success Tua enjoyed for most of the season, but then his running ability would bring a different dimension and also make the offense more viable on those days when the passing game isn't clicking.

Regardless of where anybody stands on the Tua-Lamar debate, there are reasons why not getting involved in a Jackson chase at this time makes sense for the Dolphins, and that's the cost involved.

Or should it be costs?

There's first going to be the cost of draft capital for a team already without a first-round pick in 2023 and without a third-round pick in 2024 as the result of the tampering violations involving Tom Brady and Sean Payton.

And then there's the cost of a Jackson contract because however it plays out for the South Florida native, he's not going to be cheap for any team that ends up with him — Ravens or somebody else.

And the Dolphins already have some big contracts on the books (see Hill, Chubb, Armstead) without adding another at quarterback unless it represents a major upgrade at the position.

Tua's contract is entering its last year and clearly is very team-friendly at the moment and the Dolphins can have him again at a bargain rate in 2024 if they decide to pick up his fifth-year option, though that obviously comes with some risk because of his durability concerns.

Any way you look at it, there will be some risk involved no matter what course of action the Dolphins choose.

Given what we saw during the Dolphins' 8-3 start before the season unraveled in part because of injuries, there's something to be said for just wanting to see how far the offense and the team can go with Tagovailoa before they make a drastic change that might or might not make things better.

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