Mike McDaniel ‘very encouraged’ Dolphins will sign Tua Tagovailoa to extension
Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said at the NFL scouting combine Tuesday that he is “very encouraged” the team will sign quarterback Tua Tagovailoa to a long-term deal.
“Both his representation and our organization are hard at work,” McDaniel said. “Those timelines are impossible to predict. My main concern this offseason has been communicating what Tua needs from his head coach and his offensive coaching staff, which is what things can we identify to continue the progression of your game the same way that we have since Day 1.”
He added: “My belief has always been strong from Day 1 in Tua. It’s stronger than it was the first day I met him. And that’s because of that relationship, where I’m focused, which is continuing to provide the coaching so he can continue to evolve his game as he has since the second that I started talking to him.”
Tagovailoa, 25, is set to play the final year of his rookie contract on the fifth-year option in 2024. He has been eligible for an extension since last offseason.
At the team’s end-of-season news conference in January, general manager Chris Grier said: “The goal is to have [Tagovailoa] here long term playing at a high level.” And Tagovailoa, speaking at the Pro Bowl earlier in the month, said that he believes both sides will reach agreement on a long-term deal.
“I’m going to let my agents, Chris, Mike, let those guys talk about that and let them move forward accordingly,” Tagovailoa said.
A lucrative extension would make Tagovailoa one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in the NFL but would also lower his cap hit in 2024, giving the Dolphins more flexibility to make moves during a critical offseason for the franchise. Miami has made the playoffs in each of the last two seasons but hasn’t advanced past the wild-card round. Tagovailoa’s fifth-year option carries a fully guaranteed salary of $23 million, all of which counts toward the cap in 2024. The Dolphins are currently $29 million over the cap and will make several moves to become compliant ahead of the start of the new league year on March 13.
In 2023, Tagovailoa led the NFL with a career-high 4,624 passing yards and his 29 passing touchdowns were the most he’s thrown in a season. He was also named to his first Pro Bowl.
Among Tagovailoa’s feats included playing every game for the first time in his NFL career, which McDaniel said was pivotal in Tagovailoa’s growth.
“[In] football, there’s a lot of things that can happen. There’s also a lot of things you can control,” McDaniel said. “I think one of the best examples of taking control over your career is what Tua was able to do through training and being able to experience all the different things — I mean, shoot, experience a playoff for the first time in his career.”
He added: “That was afforded to him because he was able to be leading the team, week in, week out. These are things that weren’t necessarily assumed he was capable of doing. But like most things that Tua has done in his career, he’s recognized that and proved doubters wrong.”
Since McDaniel arrived as head coach before the 2022 season, the Dolphins have been one of the most explosive offenses in the NFL. However, the unit has struggled when facing top defenses. Against non-playoff teams in 2023, Miami’s offense averaged 33.5 points. But against playoff teams, which the Dolphins had a 1-6 record against in 2023, the offense averaged just 12 points.
The continued success of the unit in 2024 largely hinges not on the team’s ability to keep top free agents such as offensive linemen Connor Williams and Robert Hunt but on adding more talent and figuring out answers to what troubled the offense against tougher competition.
McDaniel characterized the growth of the offense as a “constant evolution.”
“I’m never going to copy-paste and be like, ‘Well this is what we did in 2023 and let’s work off off that,’” He said. “[The team is] ultimately trying to create some uncertainty and indecision with offensive scheme and inherent is that is your constant evolution. I’m not really ever gloating on any successes of past. You’re more, ‘What are we going to do with this set of players?’ We’re going to have some guys who are going to be in Year 3, some guys in Year 2 and some new guys. But ultimately, what’s the best thing to serve them?”
He added: “That’s naturally evolving. There’s never been one year from an offensive perspective that I can remember that we’ve stayed exactly the same and particularly since I got started here in 2022. There will be exciting things that we do different. There’s going to be exciting things that we will evolve from and there are exciting things that we will build upon the successes of the first two years.”
