Breaking Down the Dolphins' Mixed Messages on the Tua Topic
New Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel continued his national media tour Friday with an appearance on the Pat McAfee YouTube show, where he again displayed his quick wit and sense of humor and again shared his vision for getting the most out of quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.
It's been a consistent message from McDaniel, who has publicly marveled at Tua's accuracy along with emphasizing that showing belief in the quarterback is the starting point in trying to get him to take the next step in his development.
McDaniel's message also seemed to reinforce the idea that maybe part of the reason the Dolphins hired him was because he convinced the Dolphins brass he had a plan to get the most out of the 2020 first-round pick out of Alabama.
It also reinforced the comments GM Chris Grier made to a group of South Florida writers at the combine Wednesday after he shut the door on the idea of a potential trade for Deshaun Watson and stated that Tua will be the guy heading into the 2022 season.
Just check out this comment from Grier about what the Dolphins see in Tagovailoa: “I will say Mike and the offensive staff watched every game, every throw and put together this tape of the roster, and it was pretty cool. Mike’s vision for how Tua fits into this scheme and what he can do, they’re all very excited about it. So, I think at the end of the day, probably Tua’s going to have to come in and work with him and do it on the field, but right now, there’s a very good comfort level with how they feel he fits into what Mike wants to do with our offense."
Well, that's certainly an interesting take, but nowhere near as eye-catching as his comments when asked whether Tua can be an elite quarterback.
“I can’t say he can’t be," Grier said. "It’s in a situation now where this will be built around his skill set and what the offense can be and Mike’s vision of how he fits. So, I wouldn’t say he can’t be. It’s too early. He’s played 20 games maybe. The first year was in and out and missing games this year, but I know he’s won games even this last year, and it’s hard to win games in this league. I know people want to say he doesn’t throw the ball downfield, but he’s incredibly accurate, and that’s the real exciting part for Mike and the coaching staff, his accuracy.”
Yeah, sure, maybe it's too early to say whether Tua WILL be an elite quarterback, but is it really too early to say he CAN be?
Wouldn't that have been the way to go to put the exclamation point on the franchise fully supporting their quarterback?
Was it perhaps a matter of Grier not wanting to put high expectations on Tagovailoa? If the answer is yes, we'll have to disagree because Tua wasn't selected with the fifth overall pick in the 2020 draft with the idea he couldn't be an elite quarterback. On the contrary, that sort of comes with the territory.
Understand that Grier is a soft-spoken, low-key GM not prone to making big declarations, but it's safe to say that nobody would have faulted him for saying that, yes, Tua can become an elite quarterback. That's not the same as saying that Tua definitely will become elite, but would anybody really have come back at Grier down the road had he said yes and things didn't work out that way for whatever reason?
In the grand scheme of things, this probably won't matter because it's probably more important that the head coach believe in the quarterback than the GM, but the ideal scenario obviously would be for everybody to be on board.
As it is, Grier already had partially gone down that road by shutting down the Watson trade talk and declaring that Tua was the man in 2022. While one could argue that should have been enough to show Grier is fully behind Tua, it says here it wouldn't have hurt for him to take the extra step.
