While Dolphins’ Tagovailoa is focused on ‘bigger goals and aspirations,’ MVP chatter increases
Arguably no quarterback has been playing as well as Tua Tagovailoa in the last month of the 2022 NFL season.
Since returning from a concussion in Week 7, the third-year Dolphins signal-caller has completed 72 percent of his passes for 1,230 yards, 10 touchdowns and zero interceptions. Miami is 4-0 since Tagovailoa’s return — and 7-0 in games that he started and finished this season.
“It’s great to see,” defensive lineman Christian Wilkins said after the team’s win over the Cleveland Browns on Sunday. “He is someone that we have always believed in inside the building and as teammates and regardless of what people think of him on the outside, naysayers, whoever. We’ve always had his back since Day One, and we knew he could do things like this. A lot of respect for him for blocking out the noise, just locking in on his process and doing his job, and he has been able to be a great pro. He is doing some really good things this year. So hopefully he can just keep it going and keep leading us the way he is because he is doing a phenomenal job this year.”
As the Dolphins (7-3) have reached their bye week, they find themselves in first place in the AFC East. And the combination of Tagovailoa’s strong play and the team’s success has him right in the middle of consideration for the league’s top individual honor.
Entering Week 11, most sportsbooks have Tagovailoa tied with the Bills’ Josh Allen and Eagles’ Jalen Hurts for the second-best odds to win the NFL’s Most Valuable Player Award, only trailing the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes. It marks the continued rise of a player who entered the season with questions about his legitimacy as the Dolphins’ franchise quarterback but now has Miami on track for its first playoff appearance since 2016.
The only player in franchise history to be named Associated Press NFL Most Valuable Player was Dan Marino after a record-setting 1984 season. And the last player to receive votes for the award was quarterback Chad Pennington, who got four and was runner-up to Peyton Manning in 2008.
With eight weeks left in the regular season, Tagovailoa’s missed games are the biggest argument against a potential MVP candidacy. A Week 4 concussion essentially kept him out of three games. As a result, his raw stats trail several quarterbacks. Tagovailoa ranks 11th in passing yards (2,265) but tied for third in passing touchdowns (18).
But what Tagovailoa makes up for that is efficiency that, if sustained over the rest of the season, would place him among the best seasons by a quarterback ever.
Currently, Tagovailoa leads the NFL with a passer rating of 118.4, which as it stands is the third-highest single-season passer rating in the past decade behind Aaron Rodgers in 2020 (121.5) and Nick Foles in 2013 (119.2). He also ranks first in expected points added (EPA) per play, a measure of efficiency that takes into account situational factors such as down, distance and field position. These marks are all with Tagovailoa being one of the most aggressive quarterbacks in the NFL, averaging 9 air yards per attempt, which ranks tied for sixth in the league, according to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats.
And while Tagovailoa might be the beneficiary of perhaps the best receiver duo in the NFL, his absence highlighted his importance to the offense.
According to play index site nflfastR, when Tagovailoa is on the field, the Dolphins have the most efficient offense in terms of EPA per play. When he’s off the field — and Teddy Bridgewater or Skylar Thompson have been in at quarterback — Miami has the third-least efficient offense in terms of the EPA per play.
During the third quarter of the Dolphins’ win against the Cleveland Browns, Hard Rock Stadium began to be filled with “MVP” chants directed toward Tagovailoa. After the game, he acknowledged that he heard the crowd. While he admitted receiving the award would be “cool,” he quickly redirected his focus to the team’s goal of winning a Super Bowl.
“There’s no doubt I heard that,” Tagovailoa said. “I could hear that when it was a TV timeout, when we were walking back into the tunnel. You know, it’s flattering. But what we came to do and what we came to accomplish, it’s not accomplished yet. So it would be cool, but we have bigger goals and aspirations on what we want to do as a team.”
