How’s that “tryout” going?
The buzz around Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa this past week quickly hit insufferable levels — that’s the price you pay as the Miami Dolphins when you return to relevancy for the first time in a decade. Everyone wants a piece. And everyone got a piece of the Dolphins this past week as well, specifically Tagovailoa.
A starting debut that featured less than 100 yards passing in a 28-17 win over the Los Angeles Rams was rightfully uninspiring. But the aftermath of the contest had some seemingly crawling out of the woodwork to cast criticism on the performance. The assertions that he didn’t play well were lame and inaccurate: Tagovailoa had a handful of drops and generally speaking Miami’s offense was reserved because they could be. Tagovailoa’s stat line against the Rams showed that.
And further more, the impact of Aaron Donald on the Dolphins’ game plan and execution against the Rams was clear and obvious. Miami wanted nothing to do with Donald wrecking their young quarterback — so the team didn’t offer too many chances for him to do so, even before the game got out of hand.
But the problem (not for the Dolphins, but rather for the pundits) is that there was nothing to evaluate from Tagovailoa’s 12/22 debut against the Rams. The box score showed an unproductive day, so therefore Tagovailoa must have played bad.
That won’t be a problem this week. Because the Dolphins have once again put a notch in the win column and Tagovailoa owns just as much of this one as anyone else on the team. He was spectacular. He was everything you wanted a top-5 overall pick at the quarterback position to be. His day finished 20/28 passing for 248 yards and two scores plus an additional 35 yards on the ground — breaking out of several big plays in the pocket to scramble for critical yards. And after an unproductive first half against the blitz, Tagovailoa killed the Cardinals in the second half when they brought pressure, too.
Tua Tagovailoa update:
4 or fewer rushers: 13-of-14, 178 yards, TD. The 93% completion was 2nd-best by a rookie with 10+ throws over last 15 seasons.
Tagovailoa significantly improved vs. blitz. After going 1-5 for 5 yards in 1st half, he went 6-8, 65 yards and TD in 2nd half.
— Cameron Wolfe (@CameronWolfe) November 9, 2020
The only thing the Cardinals could have done worse than blitzing Tagovailoa was not blitzing him — the rookie threw just one incompletion against 4 or less pass rushers, as noted by ESPN’s Cameron Wolfe above.
With Miami sitting at 5-3 and Tua Tagovailoa suddenly looking like a top-5 pick, we’ll be interested to hear what angle and slant will be derived about the Dolphins this week. It’s coming, be rest assured of that. The presence of Tagovailoa ensures it. But his play should prompt some apologies for those with hot takes from last week’s programming.