As we head into the end of Week 10 of the 2022 NFL season, there are two things we need to touch on that we may not have expected when the season began. The Miami Dolphins are behind only the Kansas City Chiefs in Football Outsiders’ opponent-adjusted DVOA rankings on offense (they’re first in Passing DVOA), and quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is doing just about everything expected of a quarterback at a thermonuclear level in head coach Mike McDaniel’s offense.
The statistics are… extreme. Tagovailoa currently ranks first among quarterbacks in both DVOA and DYAR, and then, there’s all this:
Here is where @Tua's 2022 season ranks across the NFL in the past decade:
Passer Rating: 3rd (118.4)
3rd Down Passer Rating: 1st (149.8)
4th Quarter Passer Rating: 7th (123.2)
Red Zone Passer Rating: 7th (118.8)
Yards Per Attempt: 4th (9.13)
— Brett Brecheisen (@bbrech) November 14, 2022
So… that’s all pretty good. In Miami’s 39-17 Sunday demolition of the Cleveland Browns, Tagovailoa completed 25 of 32 passes for 285 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 135.0, With that performance, Tagovailoa became the second quarterback in pro football with at least 275 passing yards, three touchdown passes and a passer rating of 135-or-higher in three consecutive games. The other guy to do it was Kurt Warner of the St. Louis Rams in 1999, which was Warner’s NFL MVP and Super Bowl MVP season.
There are those who will tell you that Tagovailoa has been an unusually fortunate quarterback — that’s he’s a “point guard” in a pejorative sense, who’s benefiting from McDaniel’s schematic brilliance, and a group of receivers led by Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle. But has Tagovailoa has developed and progressed in McDaniel’s offense, and with these receivers, it’s becoming ever more clear that this version of Tagovailoa is actually the perfect quarterback for this offense, and he brings as much or more to the table than anybody in the building.
Let’s cast aside the “system quarterback” dings — because every quarterback is a system quarterback — and look at how Tua Tagovailoa has become perhaps the best quarterback in the NFL… right now.