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Many people thought that the Dolphins were making a mistake when they announced that Tua Tagovailoa would take over the starting quarterback position from Ryan Fitzpatrick coming out of their Week 7 bye. A lot of folks thought the Dolphins were rushing him into the starting role too quickly, plus, Miami was 3-3 at that point and Fitzpatrick was playing well.
Fast-forward to now, however, and giving the ball over to Tua seems like a great move as he’s 3-0 as a starter and has extended Miami’s winning streak to five games.
Much of Miami’s recent success falls on its defense. Tagovailoa has been good with five touchdowns and zero interceptions, but he hasn’t been asked to do a whole lot and is averaging 25 pass attempts per game since taking over. Having said that, Brian Flores has done a great job coaching this team and Tua has done a stellar job managing games and picking his spots.
Tagovailoa is oozing with confidence, as he should be, following his win over the Chargers and admitted that he thought the transition from college football to the NFL would be harder than it has been, which is a tip of the cap to Miami’s coaching staff preparing the young QB.
“I expected it to be a lot harder,” Tagovailoa told Pro Football Talk. “Not that it’s not hard.”
“I would say I’m comfortable, but a lot of that starts from practice. Just being able to talk with our center, Ted (Karras), on Thursdays, going over our protections, just being able to talk to the O-line about what I’m thinking and then hearing from them what they’re thinking, talking to the receivers, what we’re thinking, and just kind of a combined thought process for all of us together to all kind of be on the same page.”
You can’t fault the guy for being honest especially when that guy is unbeaten as an NFL starter. The Dolphins are slowly but surely starting to catch some attention from the national media and Tagovailoa’s comments here will certainly propel that.
Tagovailoa has been on quite the journey over the past year as November 16 marked the one-year anniversary of his season-ending injury in what was his last start at Alabama.