Important Season Finale for Tua
In his final weekly media session of the 2021 NFL season, Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was asked to look ahead a bit, more specifically whether he wondered whether he was anticipating more trade rumors regarding a potential replacement or him.
“No and I’m not worried about that,” Taovaioa said. “If it comes up, it comes up. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.”
Well, Tagovailoa better be ready for those rumors because they’re coming, and they might not even be limited to Desaun Watson.
There is one way Tua could end all that talk — maybe — and that’s with a lights-out performance against the New England Patriots in the season finale at Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday.
But looking at Tua’s first two seasons in the NFL, he just hasn’t had that kind of outing against a quality opponent, which is partly why the trade speculation involving Watson surfaced in 2021 and likely will pop up again this offseason.
TUA AND THE NUMBERS
For those not buying the premise, the numbers back up the point.
The game against New England on Sunday will mark the eighth time that Tagovailoa has started against a team that did or will finish the season with a winning record.
His record in those first seven such games — since some of his supporters so often like to bring up his won-loss record — is 2-5, with a victory against the Rams in 2020 and against the Patriots in the opener in 2021, and losses against Kansas City and Buffalo in 2020 and against the Bills twice and Tennessee in 2021.
Worse, Tua’s passer rating in those seven games is 69.4. In those seven games, he has five touchdown passes and seven interceptions. His best passer rating in any of those seven games was the 83.3 he posted in the 33-27 loss against Kansas City in December 2020 — when he had 150 passing yards and a touchdown in the fourth quarter after the Chiefs led 30-10.
When it comes to comparing Tua’s numbers to those of other NFL quarterbacks, he did lead the leauge in completion percentage for severa weeks but dropped to seventh after his 18-for-38 outing at Tennessee.
Tua isn’t higher than 18th in the NFL in any other statistical passing category and stands 19th in passer rating at 89.8.
THE CASE FOR TUA CONTINUING TO BE THE STARTING QB
There certainly are some arguments to be made in favor of moving forward with Tua as the starting quarterback, starting with the fact he’s only been in the NFL for two seasons and he did have his 2021 season interrupted by his ribs and finger injuries — though that also plays into the durabiity concerns about him.
There’s also the fact that the Dolphins did invest the fifth overall pick on him just two drafts ago.
And then there’s the issue of the personnel around him on offense, namely a shaky offensive line and a poor running game.
But while there is some merit to that, some of that also is massively overstated.
For one, while some would have you believe the Dolphins offensive line is the worst to ever see a field in the NFL and Tua is under constant pressure, just know that pro-football-reference.com’s avanced stats has him at 23rd — 23rd! — when it comes to percentage of times pressure per dropback at 21.5 percent.
Yes, Tua gets rid of the ball quickly, which comes with the abundance of short passes, but let’s also not pretend as though Tua is constantly running for his life. And just check out the tape of the Tennessee game if you don’t believe that.
Besides, isn’t an elite quarterback supposed to make everybody else on offense better.
Can we really say that Tua has done that so far?
The plain truth is that Tua has not been elite so far or anywhere near a franchise quarterback, which is obviously what the Dolphins want.
So should the Dolphins move forward with him or look for somebody else? Tua sure could make that decision easier for the team — it it’s not already made one way or the other — if he can finish out the season with a bang.
Remember after the trade deadline passed back in early November and it became official that Tua would be the starting quarterback for the remainder of this season? How those remaining games were viewed as an audition for Tua?
That audition is almost over. It would help Tua's case to leave a positive final impression.
