The reasons behind Tua Tagovailoa’s limited ceiling for the Miami Dolphins

While social media is an environment ready for conflict and fans are absolutely in their rights to support players from their teams, it's still a valuable opportunity to expand the topic and show why paying top of the market money to Tagovailoa might strain the Dolphins mid- and long-term roster construction.

Does it matter?

We will start the discussion saying that it's virtually impossible to completely isolate quarterback play from his environment. And for the most part it doesn't matter to a team, as long as the offense is efficient.

For the San Francisco 49ers, for example, it doesn't matter if Brock Purdy is an elite quarterback or not, because the offense as it is is playing at a high level, and that's enough.

But the isolation of individual performance becomes extremely important when it's time to pay a player. And that happens because the offense works under a certain set of circumstances, and paying a piece more in a salary cap league will most likely force the team to invest less in other positions.

If the pay goes beyond the individual contribution, a player who was worth during his rookie contract might become a problem later on. The NFL has seen several cases like this. That's why the Los Angeles Rams traded Jared Goff away, that's why the Philadelphia Eagles moved on from Carson Wentz. Ultimately, that's why the Cleveland Browns didn't give Baker Mayfield a long-term extension.

Good vs great

Now, there's an important distinction. Tua Tagovailoa is a really good quarterback. He's accurate and puts his receivers in position to make plays. Over the last two years, he has operated Mike McDaniel's offense, and that's why the original article pointed out how difficult it is to upgrade from him. At this point, the Dolphins don't have a realistic avenue to get a better quarterback.

But there is a huge gap between that conclusion and the possibility of paying Tagovailoa over $50 million per season, which the market indicates will happen.

Isolating quarterback play

As previously mentioned, it's hard to completely extricate individual performance from its circumstances in the NFL. But there is an obvious difference between Tua's numbers and overall perception from his first two NFL seasons and the last two, since the Dolphins hired head coach Mike McDaniel and traded for wide receiver Tyreek Hill.

In his first two seasons, Tua' passer rating was 87.1 and 90.1. In the last two years, it jumped to 105.5 and 101.1. His PFF grade has grown year by year: 65.4, 68.3, 81.9, 88.4. Especially last year, that shows he played at an extremely high level executing what was expected from him.

Even so, Tagovailoa didn't receive a single MVP vote and he was not an All-Pro quarterback. And evaluating QB Elo Value, his trajectory is in fact the last among the five top quarterbacks taken in the 2020 draft — and well below Justin Herbert and Jalen Hurts.

If you are not familiar with Elo Value, this is what it is:

^{"It uses traditional stats (yards, completions, TDs, etc) to model ESPN's QBR then normalizes that value to be on the same scale as the Elo model. Think of QB Elo Value as QBR, but not on a 0-100 scale. Cumulative QB Elo Value is the sum of a QB's performance across their career (Elo / Game * number of games). This number is a great way to quantify the total value a QB contributed across their career."}

Now, let's dig into why this is happening.

Outside contribution

The Miami Dolphins built the fastest and most explosive offense in football. That aligns well with Tua's strengths, and that's exactly how a football team should operate. But when it's time to pay the pieces, it's important to understand how much each of them contributed to the team's success.

Last year, Tua Tagovailoa was fourth in EPA/play, which is for the most part a collective efficiency stat. However, he fell all the way to 13th in air yards. He was 15th in intended air yards per attempt, at 7.7. That combination of factors means that the Dolphins' receivers generated a lot of the total production after the catch (5.6 yards after the catch per completion).

If you will pay Tagovailoa top of the market money, is it viable to keep Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle with high-priced receiver contracts as well? And if they do, is it possible to build and keep a decent offensive line?

Lack of creativity

Among the 2020 quarterbacks, Tua Tagovailoa is probably the worst runner. But that's just not it. Last season, he was the worst quarterback in the entire NFL in run grade (28.5), according to PFF. Tagovailoa is the only quarterback with a run grade below 40, and it's below 30. The second worst grade is from Derek Carr, from the New Orleans Saints, which is 46.6. It's a huge difference.

Sure, that number was a negative outlier, but it has gotten progressively worse throughout Tagovailoa's career. It was 52.0 in 2022, which is also below average.

You don't need to be a Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen type of runner to succeed in the NFL, but some kind of ability to create extra yards with your legs is important, and the lack of this talent limits Tua's ceiling and ability to exploit defenses.

That, combined with the fact that Tagovailoa is not an overly physical quarterback, has forced the Dolphins to throw the ball faster. Last year, Tua had his fastest time to throw (2.32s). This is a good decision, since they are still able to create explosive plays even throwing so quickly. But again, it's much harder to do the same without Hill and Waddle.

Decisive times

Mike McDaniel has been a big reason for Tua's growth. Over each of the last two seasons, he has put together a system and tweaks that allow the Dolphins to be schematically ahead of the curve. The outmotion last year is a good example of that.

Tua Tagovailoa has helped that with his accuracy and precision, but at the same time his ability to elevate the system is more questionable.

Last year, he had six games with PFF grades over 80.0. All of them came in week 13 or earlier. From week 14 on, he had zero grades over 80.0 and three below 70.0. The Dolphins ended up losing three of the five games, which led to the Buffalo Bills winning the AFC East.

That generally happens because by December defenses are more knowledgeable about what each offense is doing, so it's easier to build an effective gameplan. It's not a coincidence that the Dolphins had played worse in December in each of the last two seasons.

In the playoffs, the situation is even worse, because coaches build hyper specific game plans. And Tagovailoa suffered with that. It's obviously a small one-game sample size, but his passer rating went down from 101.1 in the regular season to 63.9 in the playoffs.

The Kansas City Chiefs had an elite defense, but Tua had the worst passer rating among quarterbacks who faced them in the playoffs. And the Dolphins had the worst scoring outcome.

• Tua Tagovailoa 63.9
• Josh Allen 86.0
• Lamar Jackson 75.5
• Brock Purdy 89.2

It's not just a one-game problem. When Tagovailoa has to put the team on his back and produce as a leading passer, he tends to struggle. While his overall passer rating in 2023 was 101.1, the number went dramatically down to 67.8 when trailing with under four minutes left in games. And that's because in these situations, the team is forced to pass, without many running alternatives, which also limits RPOs and playaction opportunities. These are more "true dropback" situations.

How much is too much?

So the hard decision is not to keep Tua or not. He is a good quarterback and it's nearly impossible to upgrade from his with the draft capital the Dolphins have now.

If the Dolphins could realistically pay him as a good not great quarterback, something around $35 million to $40 million per season, that would still allow the front office to have room to keep and add top pieces around him, even though it's more difficult than it has been throughout his rookie deal.

However, there is not a middle class of quarterbacks when the topic is second contracts with the team that drafted the player. According to Spotrac, Tagovailoa is projected to get $50.4 million per season.

Considering inflation and Tua's raw numbers — the same that Dolphins fans use on social media to defend him — and it can very well go to $55 million per year.

Initially, the Dolphins would certainly find a way to backload the contract and keep the core together. But over time, it would be progressively harder to keep a strong environment for Tagovailoa.

When a quarterback gets a top of the market contract, the expectation is that he can elevate his surroundings to make up for the cap space he's occupying. Can Tua do that? The Dolphins will end up paying him, so we will find out.