Tua Tagovailoa’s production speaks for itself. The new Miami Dolphins quarterback launched touchdowns at a blistering pace at Alabama, finishing his career with 87 career passing touchdowns and a quarterback rating of nearly 200 (199.4). But raw production can only tell you so much — and the projection from the college game to the pro game is a very complicated matter. If touchdown passes were such an indicator, we’d have seen Colt Brennan, Case Keenum, Kellen Moore, Graham Harrell and Raheem Cato (the FBS top-5 all-time in touchdown passes) go on to have successful careers as winning quarterbacks in the NFL.
So in looking deeper into the context of Tua Tagovailoa’s play, what indicators are there of how he’ll need to play in order to have the most success in Miami?
Benjamin Solak of The Draft Network. charted 232 dropbacks from Tagovailoa’s 2019 season as a part of a projected entitled Contextualized Quarterbacking, an exercise in charting passing plays for top quarterback prospects to compare and contrast their successes and failures and how those limitations and strengths may translate to the pro game.
For Tagovailoa, the data does show some critical factors that Miami will need to be aware of. Solak’s charting logged 179 attempts that stayed within the pocket versus 61 attempts that came with Tagovailoa flushed outside the pocket. And on those outside the pocket attempts, Tagovailoa saw his completion percentage slashed by nearly two-thirds — he was exponentially better as a passer inside the pocket versus plays where he was flushed from his protection. And of Tagovailoa’s charted attempts, he was pressured on one of every five attempts — that number figures to be a bit higher in Miami, especially considering the needed growth on the Dolphins’ offensive line.
But here’s the good news — of those attempts under pressure, Tagovailoa’s ball placement logged as one of the tops in the class. And while Tagovailoa threw into “tight windows” in coverage at a rate that was significantly lower than nearly every other quarterback in this year’s class (his receivers created consistent separation), his ball placement on the few throws he did get into tight coverage was best in show.
Tagovailoa’s reputation as a pinpoint accurate passer is well earned. But the Dolphins should know that playing under pressure is something of a foreign concept to him — and that they would be best served keeping him inside the pocket. Not only did his completion percentage and success as a passer fall off drastically when he was throwing outside the pocket, both of his 2019 injuries (his ankle sprain and hip dislocation) both came on extended plays where he was put on the run and trying to create outside the pocket as well.