Breaking Down Some Tua Projections

Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is likely to take a step forward in his second season, but what will his stats look like?

Given his ability and more importantly his one year of NFL experience, it's almost a given that Tua Tagovailoa will show improvement in his second season as quarterback of the Miami Dolphins.

But the question, the all-important question, has to be: How big of an improvement should we expect?

A couple of national writers specializing in projections and fantasy football recently offered their take and came up with pretty different results.

As a reminder, Tagovailoa finished his rookie season with a 64.1 completion percentage, 11 touchdowns, five interceptions and a passer rating of 87.1 in his 10 appearances — nine starts and his NFL debut late in the Week 6 victory against the New York Jets.

ESPN writer Mike Clay projected moderate improvement for Tua, with a 64.5 completion percentage, 23 touchdowns, 11 interceptions and passing totals good for a passer rating of 91.6.

That passer rating would have ranked 23rd in the NFL last season, so the hope for the Dolphins clearly has to be that Clay is underestimating Tagovailoa's 2021 production.

No such concerns with Bleacher Report's Maurice Moton, who is projecting big things for Tua in his second season.

Moton's projections have Tua completing 351 of 509 passes (69 percent) for 4,102 yards with 28 touchdowns and nine interceptions, which would produce a passer rating of 104.1. That would have been good last year for ninth in the NFL, just ahead of Tom Brady's 102.2.

Of course, if we're looking at Dolphins history and their first-round picks at quarterback, the standard obviously is Dan Marino, who produced arguably the greatest passing season in NFL history in his second season in 1984 when he broke every major league record.

Most recently, Ryan Tannehill posted an 81.7 passer rating in his second season in 2013 when he threw 24 touchdown passes and 17 interceptions.

It's a pretty safe bet that Tua will land somewhere between Marino's second season and Tannehill's second season and his ability to end up closer to Marino's than Tannehill's will go a long way to determining his success — and that of the Dolphins — in 2021.