Network analysts agree with Chris Grier: Miami Dolphins must stick with Tua Tagovailoa
Miami Dolphins general manager Chris Grier’s decision to definitively state that Tua Tagovailoa will be the team’s starting quarterback in 2021 was well received on the national network studio shows this week.
Several ESPN and NFL Network analysts have been advocating this position even before Grier made it official.
Hours before Grier made that comment Tuesday, ESPN’s Mel Kiper implored the Dolphins to stick with Tagovailoa.
“I said when he was drafted, I think his body needed to heal,” Kiper said. “He had two major injuries — [including] that hip. To throw the football, you need everything working: legs, hips, rotation. I don’t see that. You knew he had the ability to make every throw at Alabama. He needed a year to figure it out medically and get his body back to where it needs to be.
“He played. He won games. The arm strength will show next year when he’s more time removed from that significant hip injury.”
Before Grier’s comments, ESPN’s Louis Riddick noted the absurdity of judging Tagovailoa after nine starts.
“I find it fascinating that the evaluation of quarterbacks has been hyper accelerated to the point where if a quarterback has one bad series in a game and throws an interception or God forbid has two bad series, and throws two interceptions and you lose, how quickly we are ready to say, ‘What do they have as far as draft capital where could they draft the next guy?’ Riddick said in a soliloquy on an ESPN special this week, adding that some people say, “Let’s just bring someone else in here because this guy obviously can’t play.”
Riddick wonders: “When did we transition to that kind of evaluation philosophy, especially when we’re talking about young quarterbacks who aren’t necessarily surrounded by the best ideal circumstances and who have come off an offseason and into a season where they had no previous training at the NFL level and no offseason to acclimate themselves. It’s amazing to me that becomes the conversation.
“It’s not fair to compare that situation to what Tua is going on in Miami and say Justin Herbert did it, Joe Burrow did it. We all need to slow down and apply some context in the evaluation or otherwise we will be in this merry-go-round, hamster wheel at that position.”
ESPN analyst and former Miami Dolphins president/football operations Mike Tannenbaum said: “Tua had a winning record. We need context and patience here. Tua had major hip surgery a little over a calendar year ago. He had no offseason program, no OTAs, no preseason games. He had to learn on the fly and got Miami to the final weekend of almost making the playoffs.
“Patience is important because all these rookie quarterbacks had absolutely no infrastructure to be successful in terms of all the traditional things we see in the offseason didn’t happen in 2020. A year or two years from now we’ll know a lot more about this class than what we do today.”
Tannenbaum said with Tagovailoa, “you have hopefully your quarterback the next 10 years. You have the third pick because you made a great trade and now you can operate from a position of strength, which is draft a dominant offensive lineman, draft a receiver be it [LSU’s] Ja’Marr Chase or [Alabama’s] DeVonta Smith. And if there’s a team that wants to come up for let’s say [BYU quarterback] Zach Wilson if [Ohio State quarterback] Justin Fields goes two, you can get a whole bunch of picks from that.”
And there was a strong endorsement from NFL Network analyst and ex-NFL quarterback David Carr, a former No. 1 overall pick. He said if the Miami runs the same offense for Tagovailoa that the 49ers ran for Steve Young, Tagovailoa can thrive here for 20 years.
THIS AND THAT
▪ Some have asked if Dolphins coaches might be in position to coach in the Senior Bowl because the two teams picking ahead of them in the draft (the Jaguars and Jets) are looking for head coaches. Jim Nagy, the Senior Bowl’s executive director, said the answer to that is no.
The Senior Bowl — which invites the coaching staffs of the teams with the worst records to coach in the Mobile, Alabama-based game — is slotting the Dolphins 18th in that order of selection, not third.
The Dolphins’ first-round pick is 18th. The third pick was originally owned by Houston but traded to Miami in the Laremy Tunsil deal.
▪ ESPN’s Mel Kiper and Todd McShay agree that the Dolphins should select Alabama wide receiver DeVonta Smith with the third pick in April’s draft.
But McShay also advocates using the 18th pick on a receiver, too. His pick at 18 for Miami, in his first mock draft released Thursday, is Minnesota’s Rashod Bateman.
“How badly does Tua Tagovailoa need playmakers around him in Miami, as he had at Alabama?” McShay wrote in his ESPN.com piece. “I’m giving the Dolphins two first-round wide receivers, something no team has done in the common draft era. DeVonta Smith starts that process at No. 3, but Bateman continues it at No. 18.
“Among 33 qualified quarterbacks, Tagovailoa ranked 31st in QBR when targeting a wide receiver (60.8) this season. Bateman would provide him with a tenacious middle-of-the-field presence, and he has great hands. Smith, Bateman, DeVante Parker and Preston Williams would give Tagovailoa’s offense some oomph.”
If you wondered, McShay projects Clemson running back Travis Etienne 16th to Arizona and Alabama running back Najee Harris 28th to Pittsburgh.
He has Alabama receiver Jaylan Waddle going 17th, just before Miami, and North Dakota State quarterback Trey Lance 19th, just after Miami.
Check back later for another Dolphins story.
