Hot take alert: the Miami Dolphins did the right thing by giving Tua Tagovailoa an extension. Tua -- for myriad reasons -- remains a highly controversial figure, but giving him a contract ahead of the 2024 season was a no-brainer for an offense on the rise and a quarterback with legitimate MVP potential in 2024.
There will be people who want to drum up clicks and tell you this is a bad move by the Dolphins. You'll hear plenty of reasons. Tua's been injured, he's a system quarterback, he lacks the arm strength of an elite quarterback, the Dolphins' ceiling is capped with him under center, he hasn't beaten any good teams with Miami, he's a byproduct of the weapons around him, the Dolphins crippled their salary cap, etc., etc.
It's all largely poppycock. Here's why:
The money
Like every NFL contract, and particularly quarterback contracts in this range, the devil is always in the details. Let's wait and see what the full, specific details are when the contract is filed but if I had to guess, this is a pretty team-friendly deal. I say that because Tagovailoa's contract extension is being framed publicly as "the richest four-year extension in NFL history" which says a lot.
Tagovailoa is getting $212.4 million over those four years with $167 million in guarantees, according to CBS Sports lead NFL insider Jonathan Jones. Again: devil, details, all that, but I would guess that $167 million isn't fully guaranteed. That $167 million in guarantees slots Tua between Kyler Murray and Jared Goff in terms of total guarantees, a more than completely reasonable location for 2023's passing yards leader and someone who was absolutely a viable MVP candidate late in the year.
Deshaun Watson's contract is a major outlier; Joe Burrow has the second-most fully guaranteed money at $219 million from the Bengals with the deal he signed last offseason. It stands to reason Tua will end up somewhere in the range of $120 million fully guaranteed. Again, completely reasonable. Even if he gets $140 million guaranteed, it's a perfectly fine price for a former first-round pick who's proven to be an above-average quarterback with potentially more ceiling available.
The $53.1 million per year sneaks him right above Goff in terms of average annual value, making him *technically* the third-highest-paid quarterback per year in all of football.
You might not think Tua is the third-best quarterback in football. I don't either. But we did this song and dance with Derek Carr and Jimmy Garoppolo once upon a time as well.
Quarterback values are manipulated by agents and teams so everyone gets a PR win. Make no mistake, Tua is getting paid a lot of money. But the Dolphins didn't overreach here and Tua didn't have enough leverage to hold them hostage.
Barring shocking details inside the actual paperwork, this is a very reasonable deal.
Tua's health
This is a unique injury case because Tua's health is almost entirely related to concussion issues he battled in 2022. There was talk of Tua walking away from football at one point because of concerns with his health. The former Maxwell Award winner returned for 2023 with lots of questions about his future and promptly answered them all by playing 17 games and leading the Dolphins to a second-straight playoff berth.
He's been in our football consciousness for a long time because of his recruitment status, him bursting on the scene of halftime of the National Championship Game and his high-profile time at Alabama. But Tua just turned 26 this offseason.
At the age of 25, he led the league in passing yards, took the Fins to the postseason and made his first Pro Bowl. Miami's ugly finish to the season -- exacerbated by the Bills coming on like gangbusters and stealing the AFC East out from under the Dolphins -- took some of the shine off what was a legitimate MVP campaign three-quarters into the season.
Tua had to answer the bell in 2023 to earn the contract extension from a health and production perspective. Last year at this time it was a really difficult sell to give him a new deal. Right now this is a no-brainer move by the Dolphins.
The offensive system
Mike McDaniel comes from the Kyle Shanahan system and as such, it's widely perceived anyone can parachute under center and light the NFL on fire. Brock Purdy -- and wait until we get to have THAT contract extension conversation after Purdy destroys again in 2024 -- is a perfect example, because he was literally the last pick in the draft and puts up monster numbers for Shanahan in San Francisco.
There is no question the Shanahan/McDaniel system is quarterback friendly. But if anyone could do it, Trey Lance would still be on the Niners roster. Tua, like Purdy, is a perfect fit for the system. He's an incredibly accurate thrower and, most importantly, he makes smart decisions and makes them quickly. He puts the ball where Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle and De'Von Achane can catch it and pile up yards after catch. Jonnu Smith should be a fun YAC addition to this arsenal, by the way.
Tua isn't going to grab a roster by the scruff of its neck and drag it to a Super Bowl. Very few quarterbacks can do that (the list is basically Patrick Mahomes at this point, honestly). And very few NFL quarterbacks are actually operating without elite weapons these days.
Pump some truth serum into McDaniel's veins and he's probably going to pick Mahomes, Josh Allen and maybe even Burrow over Tua. But he won't name that many names before taking his current quarterback because of how well Tua fits in with what he wants to do on offense.
The weapons
Playing quarterback in the NFL isn't some sliding scale where you get bonus points for difficulty. Every quarterback should be so lucky to have a coach like McDaniel and the weapons Tua has around him. Tyreek, Waddle, Achane, Raheem Mostert, Jonnu, Malik Washington and Odell Beckham Jr. is an ABSURD group of weapons to have around a quarterback.
But it's not like Tua demanded them. The Dolphins did an excellent job of creating a track team, loading up on speed and adding wide receivers and tight ends who accentuate not just Tua's skill set but McDaniel's play-calling as well.
The entire point of an offensive *system* is to create complements for everyone involved. The Dolphins, with their Olympic-level track speed, do just that at every level. Don't forget, this team scored 70 (yes, seven-ty) points last year in a single game.
The wins
Look, I'm not going to deny the truth here and tell you the Dolphins have dominated elite competition. They got smoked by good teams last year, finally breaking through by beating the Cowboys late in the season. They were non-competitive in a playoff loss to the Chiefs, but I'm going to write that off to historically cold weather that would have dampened almost any quarterback's ability to produce.
Tua's 0-1 in the postseason as a result of that loss, after missing the 2022 playoff game in Buffalo with injury. Let's not forget the Dolphins, with Skylar Thompson under center, nearly took out Buffalo in a road playoff game that year. If the current version of Tua plays, Miami likely wins that game and the current narrative on Tua and the postseason and big games doesn't linger the way it does.
Miami needs to win some games against good teams this year. Spoiler: so does every single playoff/Super Bowl contender.
It's going to be tougher out of the gate with almost no pass rush, assuming Bradley Chubb and Jaelan Phillips -- both injured late last year -- aren't on track to start the season.
Fortunately for the Dolphins, they just made things a lot easier by securing the long-term services of their franchise quarterback.
