Tua Tagovailoa has been a hot debate in NFL sports talks in recent years. Tagovailoa, the 5th year man out of Alabama, received a monster four year $212.4 million dollar contract this past offseason. Many NFL fans were suspicious of the contract, while other fans recognized the product Tua had put on the field to that point was worth it.
One thing even Tagovailos biggest haters have to admit, Tagovailoa has been on fire this season. This season, Tagovailoa is averaging nearly 273 yards per game, while he holds a touchdown to interception ratio of 17 to 4. For even more context, Tagovailoa since coming back from injury has thrown for 16 touchdowns to 1 interception. His efficiency is off the charts, so what is different from last year? I will break that down in this article below.
For starters, the Dolphins are playing a different brand of football than they are accustomed to in the Mike McDaniel era. While the scheme and plays are the same, Dolphins drives are called differently. Miami has committed to long sustained drives, controlling the clock and being as efficient as possible. In the past, Miami has had Tua pushing the ball downfield at will. While it has been effective, Tua has made his fair share of mistakes trusting that brand of football. This year, Tua has eliminated those “oopsie” interceptions that would hurt his football team. His ability to be quick and accurate in the screen game, check down, hit his open man early has proved to be effective.
Tyreek Hill talked about the Dolphins game plan in order to take the offense to a different level. In July during training camp he said, “”I feel like we have to be able to stay on the field. Third downs are huge downs for us. For us, it’s either boom or bust. We’re one of those teams that if we don’t have the long ball, it’s like, ah hell, it’s going to be a long game.”
Building off of what Hill said, the Dolphins also added some skill position players. Newcomers Jonnu Smith, Odell Beckham Jr, and rookie Malik Washington have received their fair share of targets in this offense. Tyreek Hill also talked about this, where he said, “So for us having a target like Odell Beckham, Jr. Having a guy like Jonnu Smith on our team that can help extend those drives; are going to be huge. Even having a healthy De’Von Achane, having a healthy Jaylen Waddle, having a healthy myself, having a healthy Raheem Mostert, it helps all of that.”
Of the three, Jonnu Smith has by far been the most impactful. Jonnu Smith provides a freakish athlete type of tight end that the Dolphins have been missing in the Mike McDaniel era. Jonnu Smith has made contested catches, while also showing run after catch ability in the screen game. Yes that is right, the Dolphins throw multiple screens a game to their tight end. This is an evolution of the Dolphins offense which has helped Tua play at such a high level.
While these weapons Miami added have been valuable to the passing game, they sacrificed some run blocking ability from the offensive line to accomplish this. Former Dolphins guard Robert Hunt left for life changing money from the Carolina Panthers last offseason, they definitely miss his presence at right guard. The Dolphins run game outside of a few outliers has been poor to say the least this year. Last game Miami played, their leading rusher had 12 carries for 24 yards.
Back to Tua, another thing he has taken a step up in this year has been his ability to make a play in a dirty pocket. He has shown multiple times this year where the pocket has collapsed, Tua escapes and makes a throw on the run to keep a drive alive. Against the Las Angeles Rams, he did this multiple times to get his team a victory on the road. One of those times happened on the first drive where he found an open Jaylen Waddle downfield, and the Dolphins eventually scored a touchdown.
Another game where Tua showed this ability was against the Raiders, Tua was faced with lots of pressure from stud pass rusher Maxx Crosby. Tua made multiple plays in a dirty pocket, one of which moved the chains on a nice throw to Jaylen Waddle, the other Julian Hill was not able to bring in a contested catch.
Lastly, Tua has an elite trait of recognizing free rushers coming in but still being able to find an open man downfield. His most recent game against the New York Jets he did an excellent job to this. Not only did he do that, but he did it in the most important moments. On 4th and goal with his team down 8 points, Tua immediately sprinted left, recognizing a free blitzer, and found Tyreek Hill in the endzone. Later in the game in overtime, Tua did the same thing. This time he found Tyreek Hill open 15 yards downfield, where Hill collected the pass and went out of bounds.
All of this in mind, Tagovailoa has played his best ball of his young career. The next evolution of the Dolphins offense is finding a consistent answer in the running game. Noticeably, the Dolphins had a great game on the ground against Buffalo over a month ago. Tagovailoa played his best game in the air this game, I do believe the effective run game had a direct impact on that. Should the Dolphins find their groove on the ground, it will be a tough ask for any defense to stop this sleeping giant.