Tua Tales: Simms Rankings, a Productive Offseason
Media members who cover the Miami Dolphins got their first look of the offseason at Tua Tagovailoa on the field this week, but head coach Mike McDaniel has seen what he's been doing all along and he has been happy and impressed.
“I’ve seen a guy that’s followed through with his words as well as any young man that I’ve come across in my career," McDaniel said. "Controlling the controllable is something that I would epitomize his offseason with. You want to talk about going above and beyond — training, martial arts. So much so that he knew the training before he knew what it was called. I think he was calling it judo. Jiujitsu is what he was doing, but that in terms of helping him progress in his career has been phenomenal."
McDaniel, who kind of joked that so many people came up with the idea of Tagovailoa taking up jiu-jitsu that nobody did, said his quarterback will benefit from basically learning how to absorb a fall — thereby hopefully preventing the concussions he suffered during the 2022 season.
"The work that he’s done this offseason, it was so obviously beneficial that we’ve incorporated it into some of our drill work that we’ll do with the quarterbacks," McDaniel said. "I think it was Teddy Bridgewater (who) made this point to me last year. As a quarterback you go, September starts, and then you get tackled. And then you get tackled for six months and then you don’t again until September. So how can we help train quarterbacks to stay healthy because it wasn’t just too early. How do you stay healthy in this game and stay available? And that’s something that that whole offseason training has really helped us try to take a good step in the right direction for how to best prepare players for an NFL season.”
As we've suggested here before, though, the biggest key for Tua avoiding bad injuries just might be giving up on a play and letting the ball go instead of waiting too long to see if something can develop downfield.
CHRIS SIMMS STILL SKEPTICAL
Since he entered the NFL — even before actually — Tua has had his supporters among national media personalities and he's had his detractors (or skeptics, if you prefer).
Former NFL quarterback Chris Simms of NBC Sports clearly is among the latter, and while he seems to think more highly of Tagovailoa than he once did, he still doesn't think of him as a top 10 quarterback, or even one who ranks among the top half of the league.
In his annual top 40 QB ranking, Simms has placed Tagovailoa this year at number 21.
“He runs that offense to a T," Simms wrote. "He arguably has the quickest release in football. Other than (Aaron) Rodgers, he’s the best RPO quarterback in football. But his arm is below-average for an NFL starter. It doesn’t create much on its own. Nobody would watch Tua film and go, ‘It’s lasers.’ When you break it down, there are so many yards and plays left on the field…The variety of releases is awesome. He’s not a great runner but he’s a good athlete…He’s not durable. It’s been an issue his whole career. He plays small in the pocket, he loses control of power throws down the field, and when teams took away some of those trick plays, he couldn’t deliver … He’s the perfect fit for this offense. I would run those same things with Tua, too, but that doesn’t mean the 20 other guys in front of him can’t do it either and then some other stuff as well.”
We should point out that Simms had Tua at number 29 at this time last year after putting him at 34 in 2021.
