Dolphins 2025 Quarterback Report Card: What Grade for Tua?

The Miami Dolphins’ season did not go as planned, largely because their roster didn’t meet expectations.

Now that the team is turning the page with GM Jon-Eric Sullivan and HC Jeff Hafley, we’re taking one last look back at the 2025 roster and mostly grading players who played meaningful snaps.

We’re going position by position to grade every player based on the film study we did during the season and their expectations. Let’s start with the quarterback position.

Tua Tagovailoa

Tagovailoa’s regression in 2025 was a major reason the Dolphins got off to such a bad start and never truly recovered in a meaningful way. Tua completed 67.7% of his passes for 2,660 yards, 20 touchdowns, and 15 interceptions.

Those 15 interceptions were a career high, and his completion percentage was his lowest since 2022. However, the real drop-off came in EPA per dropback, a stat that Tua dominated since Mike McDaniel was hired.

He finished 2025 at -0.01, his worst mark since his rookie season and down from 0.21 in 2024.

Stats aside, Tua didn’t look like himself for most of the season. His arm strength got even worse, and he wasn’t processing defenses like he did in the past. He was hesitant, clunky in the pocket, and a bad decision-maker.

When you pair that with his physical limitations (lack of mobility, limited arm strength), it doesn’t leave much room for a passing offense to operate. That got Tua benched for Quinn Ewers once the team was eliminated from postseason contention with three games remaining.

Looking ahead, it’s more than likely the team will cut Tua this offseason. Whether they decide to spread his $99 million cap hit out over two seasons or put it all on the books for this season is really the only question left.

Given that’s where the team’s franchise quarterback ended up, we have to give Tua a pretty harsh grade. That is not to say that everything that happened with the Dolphins is his fault.

McDaniel, former GM Chris Grier, and other players also hold a portion of the blame. However, we’re not grading them here — this is about Tua’s individual performance, and there is not a single metric (stats or film) where he even met expectations.

For a franchise quarterback, that is a failure — no matter how you slice it.

Grade: F

Quinn Ewers

Ewers got three starts at the end of the season once Tagovailoa got benched, and the former seventh-round pick played reasonably well considering the circumstances.

He completed 66.3% of his passes for three touchdowns and three interceptions. Those numbers won’t blow anyone away, but it was clear the passing offense got a slight jolt with him at the helm.

Unlike Tua, Ewers was willing to move off his spot and make some plays outside of structure. That’s not a strength of Ewers’ game, but he was at least willing to try that and throw the ball downfield.

Ewers had immediate chemistry with Darren Waller because he just tossed up a couple of passes, letting Waller use his frame to box out and make a play. It was also pretty clear that Ewers had the right tools to run McDaniel’s scheme.

That shouldn’t be a surprise, given McDaniel handpicked Ewers, and that his offense at Texas borrowed a lot from Miami’s playbook under McDaniel.

While there were a number of positives in Ewers’ play, there were also some considerable limitations that manifested. For starters, Ewers’ accuracy is not NFL-start level.

His ball placement into tight windows was not good, and his inability to throw accurate passes outside the numbers was a huge problem for Jaylen Waddle. The Dolphins’ top receiver probably had 100 yards left on the field against the Cincinnati Bengals because Ewers couldn’t hit a comeback or field-out.

Additionally, Ewers’ decision-making still needs significant improvement. Like Tua, he has a bad tendency to trust the offense no matter what look he’s getting from the defense.

There’s an argument that’s what he was coached to do, but at a certain point the quarterback has to stop throwing into covered looks.

Overall, Ewers proved he can hang in the league as a depth quarterback, and there’s a chance he’ll be involved in the team’s QB competition this summer. Still, it’s hard to feel good about him developing past a solid QB2.

Grade: B-

Zach Wilson

Grading Zach Wilson’s season is tough because he didn’t play outside of a few garbage-time reps. Miami’s signing of Wilson would definitely earn an F because he got passed over by Ewers for the final three games.

How much of that was due to Wilson’s play, though? At that point in the season, it was significantly more valuable for Miami to see what Ewers could do since he was under contract past this season.

Wilson’s prior track record being so bad certainly didn’t suggest he would suddenly break out. Although McDaniel also mentioned the team went with Ewers because they felt like he gave him the best chance to win with a week of preparation, but that Wilson’s experience gave him a leg up in an emergency situation.

That explains why Wilson was QB2 all season, but the Dolphins also made a midseason switch at that position for their loss to the Browns. Then McDaniel said Wilson beat out Ewers in a competition the following week to earn back the QB2 spot.

See why it’s hard to pin any of this on Wilson? Because of those weird dynamics, we’re giving Wilson an incomplete grade. But again, Miami signing him was not a good move.

Grade: incomplete

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