Exploring the growing chasm at ESPN over Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa
Two ESPN camps have emerged on Tua Tagovailoa, and it’s simultaneously fascinating and tiresome to watch, if that combination is possible.
On one side are former NFL quarterbacks Dan Orlovsky (a big advocate for Tagovailoa) and Tim Hasselbeck, former NFL defensive lineman Marcus Spears and to an extent, Domonique Foxworth (who said Tagovailoa is better than New England’s Mac Jones).
On the other side: Mike Tannenbaum, Damien Woody, Stephen A. Smith and Booger McFarland, all of whom seemingly don’t expect much from Tagovailoa.
“Get Up” host Mike Greenberg is an anchor, not an analyst, but he doesn’t seem to hold Tagovailoa in high regard, either, repeatedly asking his panelists if Tagovailoa is “out of excuses” and under “more pressure” than any other quarterback, a line of questioning that sets the network narrative.
ESPN’s Louis Riddick and Ryan Clark appear to stand somewhere in the middle on Tagovailoa.
Even before the Tyreek Hill trade, Hasselbeck predicted Tagovailoa will have his best season playing for Mike McDaniel, and Orlovsky spoke of how he can become another Drew Brees. Since the Hill trade, they’ve doubled-down in their support of Tagovailoa.
“Tua’s strengths are the way he can use his eyes to manipulate the defense while also getting ready to throw the football,” Orlovsky said after the Hill trade.
“And living in the run-pass option game that Tua is the best quarterback in the NFL doing. That is going to be the focal point with Mike McDaniel. Tua is going to be operating so many versions of the RPOs where McDaniel is going to be able to give him two or three plays at the line of scrimmage.”
Orlovsky added: “At the quarterback position, the thing that matters most is how fast you think and how well you throw it, and Tua does it really good. Aaron Rodgers plays in the Mike Shanahan, Kyle Shanahan offense, and no quarterback has thrown more passes at the line of scrimmage the past two years than Aaron Rodgers.
“Tua is going to be that quarterback, not to that level. But he [will] play point guard, with that mind-set and get the ball out as quickly as possible. This offense has a chance to lead the league in” yards after catch.
Spears said: “Miami is going to have a really good team. I’m not out on Tua like other people.”
And Hasselbeck, the former NFL backup, has said at least five times on ESPN studio shows in recent weeks that Tagovailoa has been evaluated “unfairly” by critics and is poised to take a leap this season.
“We’ve prematurely judged Tua,” Hasselbeck said. “It will be an offense designed around things he does well. We’ll see a much better Tua in 2022.”
And then there’s the skeptical pack of ESPN employees.
“I don’t think he’ll ever prove worthy of being a top-five pick,” former Dolphins executive and current ESPN analyst Mike Tannenbaum said. “He has athletic deficiencies. So what he can do well is he’s accurate short and underneath. He has good anticipation.
“They have to get the ball out of his hands quickly because as the pocket compresses, that exacerbates his weakness. It has to be a quick passing game, which does play to his strengths.”
Even after the Tyreek Hill trade, Tannenbaum said: “I’ve never been in on Tua. That’s why the Patriots are better than the Dolphins. They have the best Alabama quarterback in the division... Outside of Davis Mills and Mitch Trubisky, I’m not sure what other quarterback Tua would be in front of in the AFC.”
Before the big Denver/Seattle trade, ESPN’s Ryan Clark implored the Dolphins to trade for Russell Wilson, while proclaiming that Tagovailoa never will be in the top tier of NFL quarterbacks.
“This is not to say that if you surround him with the right things he can’t win you football games,” Clark said. “But to say he’s going to be elite, I can’t. What I can say is he is not going to be an elite quarterback. We are not going to be talking about him in the premier group. And if you want to find that quarterback in Miami, it’s not going to be Tua Tagovailoa.”
ESPN’s Booger McFarland also expressed concerns.
“You want to run the football, but I think Tua can do some things; he’s athletic and has some mobility,” McFarland said when asked to discuss Tagovailoa’s future playing for new coach Mike McDaniel.
“But your quarterback has to be able to drop back and throw the football. We’ve seen Jimmy Garoppolo struggle in that type of offense, and I think Tua will also. The biggest question in Miami that they have to ask themselves is: Can Tua win in January?
“If you were to rank the top quarterbacks in the AFC, where would you rank Tua? Just food for thought. While they’re going to have a little success running the football, they’ve got to get the offensive line fixed.
“When the rubber meets the road, they have to ask themselves: Can Tua beat the guys we saw go on those runs in January? If they’re being honest, right now the answer is no.”
As we’ve noted, several contemporary quarterbacks have made big jumps in Year 3. There’s no reason to think that Tagovailoa cannot do the same.
And besides the overall accuracy, there were two things that Tagovailoa does that overcame Dolphins weaknesses and shouldn’t be overlooked:
1) His ability to avoid sacks. Miami yielded by far the most pressures in the league, but Tagovailoa was sacked only 20 times in 777 snaps, compared with 19 sacks in 376 snaps taken by backup Jacoby Brissett. There should be far fewer quarterback pressures with Terron Armstead and Connor Williams added to the offensive line.
2) Because his receivers didn’t create enough separation, Tagovailoa had to throw into tight coverage 19.3 percent of the time last season, most of any NFL quarterback, per Next Gen Stats, which counts any throw with a defender within 1 yard or less as tight coverage. That shouldn’t be the case with Hill on the roster.
McDaniel remains bullish on Tagovailoa, telling NFL Network’s Peter Schrager that he “has skills that I think are untapped. I think his best days are in front of him.”
And McDaniel told Pat McAfee: “Tua is genuine and a hard worker.. He has certain talents that are unique to the quarterback position and I want him to be a top starter in the NFL. Tua is unbelievably accurate. I’m very aware the dude has been in six offenses in six years and we need to teach him a new language, which is that offense. I’m not going to put a ceiling on what he can be.”
