My Case for Moving Past Tua - Just in Time for New Deshaun Watson News - Read til the end to find out

 

Tua Tagavailoa just can't stay out of the headlines.

There are a lot of ways that we can interpret what's going on in Miami – there are a lot of ways that what's going on in Miami is being interpreted, both by the National thinkers and talking heads and by Dolphins-centric thinkers and talking heads. It almost always goes back to “what the organization thinks of him” or “how the organization is treating him.” Which—

I find the latter of these especially funny. Any toxic workplace or disrespectful management chatter you hear is projection: People unhappy with their employment living vicariously through defending Tua. But, where we are right now, we expected all of this.

We all went into the 2021 season saying that this was Tua's make or break year. Because he didn't show anything last year – in fact, he got benched twice for his performance (or lack there of) and blown out when he needed a win to make the Playoffs – he needed to show us something this year for his draft status to make sense.

The Dolphins do not want a “developmental” quarterback. And I agree with them.

Which, frankly, is an interesting thing to say.

Quarterbacks take time to develop. Josh Allen wasn't who Josh Allen is today the first two years of his career. Even Tom Brady took nearly a decade to put up the kind of monster numbers we associate him with.

I feel like I've said this a million times before, but Miami's philosophy is that their defense is going to win them games; they just need the offense to play well enough to limit the number of possessions the opposing offense has. In order to do that, you don't want a superstar quarterback. You don't want a gunslinger like Patrick Mahomes. You don't want someone who is going to make poor decisions with the football, either putting it on the ground or throwing it to the wrong-colored jersey.

I was willing to give Tua all the time he needed to develop this season – until he got hurt. Then I started looking around the League to see what other people were really saying about him. And the questions were louder than the answers. Didn't a 50 year-old Drew Brees play with like 23 broken ribs last year? Dudes are publicly questioning Tua's toughness. This is something you never see.

So when he comes back for London, I'm thinking that he can't have missed a step. He needs to look like he's played all these games and worked the kinks out of his. In other words, I needed to see him being Russel Wilson, playing shadow football in the redzone before those games. When he stepped on the field in London, I needed to see a dramatically improved offense.

And I didn't.

I didn't against Atlanta, either.

The problems with this are myriad. But I want to start with – I have introduced this entire piece because I wanted to talk about – chemistry with the wide receivers.

A quarterback's chemistry – that's the word we use to describe the intangible relationship between passer and catcher, the instinctual understanding, the telepathic connection— We also call it being on the same page. You see chemistry when you see a receiver cut in an option route and catch the ball without having to look back at his passer to see if it's in the air. And it's the quarterback's responsibility to develop this chemistry.

Antonio Brown is still in the NFL because Tom Brady believes in him. Because Tom Brady is coaching him as a player and as a man – on the field and off. Leonard Fournette is having a career year because Tom Brady is mentoring him as a man and as a player. Now – not every quarterback can be his team's father. And I think receivers hated Tannehill because he could run their routes as well or better than they could. (He was a starting receiver in college – he had to be at least pretty good.)

We talk a lot about leadership as a trait quarterbacks have to posses. I call it being a General. They have to be able to command the offense. You hear it all the time when quarterbacks are talking about the early stages of mastery of a playbook: “When he has full command of the offense....”

I remember Tannehill used to get crushed for his leadership in all the media outlets except MiamiDolphins.com – and even there, there were questions about him when he told that practice squad linebacker to “have fun with his practice squad paycheck." (I'm a little surprised at myself that I remembered the quote.) I laugh at that now, because I heard Peyton Manning and I think it was Drew Brees – it might have been Brady, which would be even more amazing – shitting on practice squad linebackers and d-linemen for batting down passes in practice. Peyton said they even had a name for those dudes.

But I also remember Tannehill's college teammates, dudes who were famously irascible, talking about how great he was as a teammate. And I remember his offseason throwing sessions with his receivers – and I remember how furious Jarvis Landry was when he was traded before the private throwing sessions. But, as I go back to double-check my memory, all I'm finding is articles of Landry trashing Tannehill. Like this story. Which means that I probably just explained away the things Jarvis was saying at the time.

When I read the articles now, all I see is a dude who did have a good relationship with his quarterback who's saying the things he needs to say to fit in where he's at now. And the Pouncey brothers are famous at this point in their careers for saying stupid, Judasy things.

But, see, I'm aware that this is my old pro-Tannehill bias creeping in. I so badly wanted him to be one of the great quarterbacks for all those years that I still find myself doing it – not so much about his Titans play, I feel like I'm routinely too hard on him. No, when I look back on his time in Miami.

I looked at Tannehill's numbers his rookie season. Then I looked at Tua's through whatever it's been, 12 games. Tua hasn't played as much yet – not at the professional level – but their numbers are about even. By my estimation, Tannehill had a 6.6 yards per attempt average, and Tua's is so far 6.5. Tannehill threw many more interceptions. But Tannehill was throwing to dudes named Brian Hartline, Charles Clay, Anthony Fasano, and Davone Bess. Which – if you don't know those names, there is a reason. Of them, only Fasano had a career before or after Miami. Bess got traded to Cleveland then had a mental breakdown in an airport; Idkwtf happened to Brian Hartline; Charles Clay went to Buffalo for big money and disappeared.

If Tua stays at the trajectory he's at, he'll catch up with Tannehill's losses in his first 16 contests, too.

So, in summation of that comparison, if the thought was to move off Ryan Tannehill to get someone better - if you think as many do that Ryan Tannehill is the Median Quarterback - then you don't stick with someone on a less-exciting version of his trajectory with better weapons on offense and a significantly better defense.

I'm not sure how I got started talking about Ryan Tannehill, except as a way to confront my own confirmation bias – and my natural tendency to overcorrect my assumptions.

Command.

I remember the problem with all those Dolphins offenses always amounted to Tannehill never being allowed to take command. Once he did, that one season with Gase, things really started taking off. That's why it makes sense to me that the Dolphins have handed Tua the reins and are expecting him to take command of the offense. There is no asking.

The situation Tua has walked into is the situation the main character walked into in The Firm. Has everyone read that book or seen that movie? I'm sure it's too dated at this point. 

Actually, I was trying to be cute so I didn't have to describe Tua's situation any more explicitly, but just take this passage from the wikipedia entry for the novel: ...He finds the firm's offer – a large salary, a lease on a new BMW, and a low-interest mortgage on a house – too generous to resist. Soon after he joins, his new colleagues help him study and pass his bar exam, the first priority for new associates. Mitch is assigned to partner Avery Tolar, the firm's “bad boy”, but a highly accomplished attorney.

Tua's first season was what any first year-starter could hope for. In fact, it was lifted right out of Dan Marino's script: taking over mid-season for the bad boy. The problem is that there was a steep decline in the performance of the offense when Tua was on the field. We brushed it off because Fitzpatrick is a veteran bad boy, and we thought for sure if anyone was going to show Tua the ropes, it would be him.

I'm not here to say that Fitz failed at that. But he did. The moment he started crying to the media that he felt like he'd lost “his” team.  “We're putting Tua in? I'm floored,” he says.

Even Fitz knew Tua wasn't ready and the team wouldn't be able to compete with him at the helm. Which has to hurt. Fitz could have gotten his first Playoff win with that Dolphins team.

You never hear veterans say these things about rookies, though. When was the last time you heard Tyrod Taylor talk shit about Josh Allen or Baker Mayfield or Justin Herbert or Davis Mills? Or Brian Hoyer or Matt Moore or even Chad Henne at this point in his career? Hell, do you think Case Keenum is going to shit-talk Baker if he wins out during Bake's absence?

Tua had everything given to him, and he struggled. Fine. That's to be expected. But the Year Two Leap is supposed to be real. Every former player you hear talking will pontificate ad nauseum about their Year Two Leap. Your play speed, preparation, everything is supposed to make a huge jump between Years One and Two. You're no longer a kid fresh out of college with no real understanding of how to be the face and primary mover of a multinational, billion dollar megacorporation. No one really expect you to.

But by Year Two there are expectations. There are expectations in month two in most employment situations, to say nothing of Year Two.

And Tua hasn't come close to meeting them.

If Miami's organization works the way it should – and, indeed, they are showing some signs that Flores's letter of resignation is sitting on Ross's desk – head coach Brian Flores should be telling Tua Tagovailoa that Tua is his quarterback. Because right now he is. But he should be telling Chris Grier that Tua isn't the guy. Because he isn't the guy they drafted.

The guy they drafted has great footwork, plus athleticism, limited arm talent and strength, but elite vision, pocket awareness, accuracy, and decision-making, and zip on his release. They drafted that guy, in other words, to be a game manager. And what they got was Tua Tagovailoa.

Tom Brady skews the stats, but I'm willing to bet that more Super Bowls have been won by game managers than by gunslingers. The Hall of Fame game managers I can readily think of are Bob Griese, Joe Montana, Troy Aikman, Tom Brady.... I'm not sure where Peyton sits on that slider. I think of gunslingers as guys who want to air it out deep all day, but Peyton Manning managed the game better than anyone in the world until Tom took that mantle after his retirement.

It's been difficult for me to argue that Tua Tagovailoa is inaccurate when his completion percentage is so high. It goes back to that argument that I got in where the guy was saying that accuracy and completion percentage aren't linked. Of course they are; it's just a lot more complicated than high accuracy = high completion percentage.

When I watch Tua throw, I don't think he's accurate. But he has a huge completion percentage, which makes arguing his efficiency a non-starter. He is clearly efficient. 32/40 is what it is. 40 attempts and not even 300 yards is also what it is. So it seems pretty clear to me that I either have my definitions mixed up, other people have their definitions mixed up, or we're all talking about the same thing and I'm evaluating the wrong quarterback category.

I think the mistake that I'm making is tying Tua's ball placement to his accuracy. It seems to me that the professionals and the people who see the world in a way that I am learning from do not tie ball placement to accuracy. Because it seems to me that Tua is accurately – maybe even pin-point accurately – locating his balls.

He's just locating them in the wrong places.

Which is a decision. And when I watch his interceptions, I see a guy locating the ball exactly where he wants to – just either not powerfully enough or with the completely wrong throw.

I see a lot of people comparing Justin Herbert's endzone interception against Washington in Week 1 to Tua's redzone interception against Atlanta. I can't speak to the Herbert interception – as I remember it, I just shook my head saying to myself, “You can't attempt that throw, it's always an interception.” Because you can't attempt that throw – it's always an interception. So I go back and look at them both myself.

Herbert had Ekeler open in the right flat. Tua had Waddle and Williams open – directly in front of him on a crosser with yards to gain in the zone defense, and in the left flat. But for whatever reason, Tua never takes his eyes of Durham Smythe (I think) on the post to the endzone. You can see the utter dismay of both Waddle and Williams when Tua releases the ball.

That route Smythe is running (and if I've got the wrong name, I'm sorry; I've been at this piece a long time and I just don't feel like efforting more than this apology) is a diversion. It's designed to open up the defense so that Waddle can take the underneath route and use his speed against defenders who are running away from him. Tua throws to his backup tight end in the back of the endzone.

Which is an indicator of one of two things: Either Tua is significantly more confident in his arm than is deserved, or he doesn't appreciate how difficult the NFL game actually is. 

I've talked a lot in this piece, and I've said a lot of nothing. I'm still trying to work through these thoughts. Since I don't have a partner I can talk to them with out loud, and I don't have access to Game Pass so I could focus these on something like film study, I'm left scrambling like an asshole a lot of the time. Which is fine – this is the task I've set for myself. People were able to write about football, to even have fantasy leagues that spanned the continental US before the internet, I think I can make this thing work long enough to receive the alms I need to upgrade my game.

Why doesn't Tua look to his left?

Let's examine what I'm talking about from a different direction. (See what I did there?)

Tua isn't a natural lefty. This caught me completely by surprise when I was watching them on Thursday night. Now, the rest of the world probably knew this. I was completely checked out on football leading into the 2020 season – and actively ignored any Dolphins news. I feel like I've told you somewhere that the Dolphins and I have been taking a break for a couple seasons, now. Long enough to get legally divorced in North Carolina, as it happens.

Now, Tua not being a natural lefty isn't a big deal in baseball. Baseball doesn't have a 180-degree potential target radius. But in football... I'm beginning to think it's a huge deal. If the offense is designed to be left-handed – I've asked all the major Miami writers, and they have neither responded nor written articles addressing this question to my knowledge, so let's just assume it is (because from what I've seen, it is).

So, if the offense is designed to be left-handed, but Tua is right-handed, he's making all of his post-snap reads backward in his mind. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but pick up a guitar and fret it with your dominant hand. Or try to paint with your off-hand. Or try to throw a football backward. I noticed in the first half of the Falcons game that Tua was targeting everything to his right – and that dudes were open to his left. And when the offense was working in the second half, everything was to the left.

So if you want a reason to move off Tua as Your Guy as a head coach, I wouldn't need anything more than that. If Tua is playing right handed, throwing left handed, and you're designing the offense left-handed – there's a fundamental disconnect there that's not going to allow anything to flow freely in the offense. It's like having kidney and bladder stones: Not only are you going to be in agonizing pain, but you're not even going to want to piss anymore after a while.

Am I suggesting that the quarterback is the head coach's dick and that football is in more than many ways a dick-measuring contest?

Yes. Yes I am. And I'm also suggesting that Tua might be a urinary tract infection.

The Manningcast has changed my life. Watching the Brothers Manning talk football with one another, but especially with Tom Brady and Drew Brees (to a significantly lesser extent) has completely opened my eyes to how the game should be seen and played. Specifically, listening to them dissect what defenses are trying to do and how to beat them. What to do with your eyes, and what you should be seeing pre-snap and looking for post-snap.

I don't know that you need to see good quarterback play to learn how it's done. In fact, I find bad quarterback play more instructive. If you can see what a guy should have done, you can recognize when it can't be done or when the greats are getting it done. I really did not mean to make a Larry the Cable Guy reference, there.

When I watch Tua play, I'm reminded of Cris Collinsworth absolutely busting my balls through four installments of Madden anytime I threw short of the sticks. I can even remember his damn smarmy remark: “Sure, it looks nice on the stat sheet, the high completion percentage, but first downs look better.” And I guess that's what I've been trying to say: the stat sheet looks nice, but the games look bad. The Eye Test is subjective, but Tua fails for me.

I'm thinking right now of Gregg Rosenthal stealing a thought right out of my own head. He said something to the effect of when he thinks of the Buccaneers trouncing the Bears, what he remembers is Tom Brady being furious with his receivers for their decisions during the game. When I think of the soundbite that best captures that game, I think of Bruce Arians and his actually angry face saying that the team left another 20 points on the field. You won by 35 points, but you're saying it should have been 50 – and you're actually upset with your team for it.

That's what the greats do.

The greats don't hand out lollipops for Garbage Time production. They don't say almost or maybe or well if my receivers were running the right routes. The great game managers throw dudes who aren't running routes open. They make checks to running plays when their receivers are blocking well. They recognize defenses.

And the great coaches recognize when they don't have a great quarterback and move off him like their job depends on it.

Am I the only person who is losing his mind that Burrow beat the Ravens with the same audible he beat the Jaguars with a few weeks ago – against Cover 0 – only this time he checked to the fake tight end screen?

That is what Flores wants from Tua, and that's specifically what he's not getting.

Burrow and Herbert are so far advanced over Tua in preparation that any questions in their decision-making are more than covered for me – and are way more than made up for to everyone else by their arm strength and talent. Lamar Jackson has his athleticism and deep ball to fall back on when he's losing the mental game. When we're looking around the league and seeing quarterbacks, especially young quarterbacks, playing in defense-first philosophies, and we're seeing them struggle, it's because their coaches need them to make good decisions and they aren't adjusting to the speed of the NFL game.

Which is what we should expect. Until the 2008 draft, quarterbacks were expected to sit on the bench at least a year. Ever since Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco found immediate success, we're disappointed when a quarterback doesn't.

The disconnect with what the Dolphins are doing as a long-term and in-season operation seems to be with the idea that Tua is actually a season-to-season proposition. That he had no competition this season is damning both of the organization but also of Tua himself. It's damning of Tua because it suggests the organization didn't think he could mentally power through the stress; and it's damning of the organization that they didn't have a better backup plan for Tua's inevitable collapse under the pressure of the NFL than Deshaun Watson.

I don't think the organization is surprised, though.

I learned this past week that Tua tried to transfer from Alabama when Jalen Hurts was looking like he was going to be the starter. We praise guys for this in the modern NFL. But... I find it concerning. If I'm going to take the lesson I maybe should have learned about Tannehill's leadership, then I have to look leeringly at the way Tua comports himself as a professional.

And in doing so, I can't help but notice that he doesn't make the team better. In fact, the interceptions that have killed his team have been entirely his fault – the results of poor decision-making.

I'm thinking of Chip Kelly right now and his quarterback-proof offense. It proved to be a sham, but defensive coaches continue to wonder that more offenses don't run a hurry-up offense. I'm also thinking about how when Petyon and Eli watch young quarterbacks they're clapping their hands for them to hurry up to the ball and get a fake cadence out so you can make accurate checks at the line of scrimmage. And then I'm thinking about how slow Miami's offense feels in and out of the huddle.

I'm thinking of Kelly because I'm running through all the plays I've seen of Jalen Hurts this season in my mind. And I'm seeing a very similar quarterback to Tua. A very limited quarterback who isn't sure of what he's seeing on the field.

Which is interesting, because you're inclined from that to think that maybe it's a Nick Saban problem – a problem of the embarrassment of riches that Alabama had for weapons. But you remember then that Mac Jones is playing like a three-year veteran, and you can only imagine the Year Two Leap, there – like when he gets his body right and is actually strong and fit – and you're left feeling like you got the wrong Alabama quarterback if you're an Eagles or Dolphins evaluator. If you're Grier and Flores, you feel like Billy B got the best of you again.

Though, if Miami had drafted Mac Jones, the world would have exploded.

I am displeased with Jaelan Phillips to this point in the season.

I find myself finally running out of steam on this topic. And I still haven't really talked at all about how it's a quarterback's job to establish chemistry with his receivers. The quarterback does not adapt to his receivers, the receivers adapt to him. That's what I've learned from Manning and Brady the most, I think.

When they were talking about learning their new offenses in their new spots, they both said that at some point they just decided to do it their ways – and then things started working. Because they took command. I don't know that Tua can take command. Because I don't see a guy who's willing to command his receivers. I see a guy who needs to fit like a glove in his scheme to work at this level, and I don't know how you scheme a right-handed offense for a left-handed thrower.

It just doesn't make sense to me anymore.

Does this mean I care about next year's quarterback class from college and I'm going to be paying attention to the Deshaun Watson news even more carefully now?

Sigh.

We can all agree the Deshaun Watson to Miami news is Fake, right? Okay, I'm done talking about that.

However – if sometime before the 2^nd, Deshaun suddenly settles out of court, you may as well start celebrating or burning your memorabilia – because it's happening.

And lo and behold, I opened my Twitter to double check I hadn't missed anything before I publish this son of a bitch, and Dan Lust Tweets “The word is out, per @charlesRobinson, that Houston and Miami have a Deshaun Watson deal BUT ONLY IF he settles his cases by the 11/2 trade deadline.

“For the next 5 days, the accusers have INCREDIBLE leverage. If settlement doesn't occur, Watson will have to sit for a deposition.”

And that's my headline.

Thanks for making it this far. I've basically started my readership over by letting someone get under my skin on Twitter and getting my other account banned. That's fine. I'm better than my behavior and have learned that lesson. So what I'm saying is it's cool you're here and I'm glad I got to talk at you. I'll do it again soon.

Until then.