Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa has looked great in his first 10 games with head coach Mike McDaniel leading the offense.
He’s set career-highs already, throwing for over 2,800 yards with 21 touchdowns and just five interceptions. He also leads the NFL is passer rating (112.0).
Despite his improved play, the conversation, especially in a week where his team is taking on former first-round pick Justin Herbert, continues to follow the decision that Miami made to select Tagovailoa with the fifth selection in 2020.
ESPN’s Bill Barnwell took time this week to look back at that draft, and he re-ranked the quarterbacks who came out that year. The result, Tagovailoa goes from the second quarterback taken to third.
Here’s what Barnwell wrote about Tagovailoa:
“The third quarterback off the board is Tagovailoa. None of these four has played at a higher level for an extended period of time than Tagovailoa has during this 2022 season. Before the 49ers game, he had clearly been the most effective passer in football on a play-by-play basis. That race is more muddled now, but he still leads in the league in yards per attempt and passer rating and is just behind Mahomes in QBR.
It has taken major upgrades to coax this career season out of Tagovailoa, but I’m inclined to look at those first two seasons and write them off (mostly) as a product of his hip injury and an unplayably bad offensive line. He’s probably more sensitive to being in ideal situations than the other quarterbacks on this list, but he has shown that his ceiling can be an MVP-caliber passer. I’m not sure anybody else is quite at that level yet.”
While it’s not a surprise that Joe Burrow, who went first in the real draft, went ahead of Tagovailoa in Barnwell’s piece, strangely it was Jalen Hurts that bumped his former college teammate down not Herbert.
Hurts, like Tagovailoa, has taken a leap this season with both quarterback acquiring game-changing wide receivers in the offseason. While they both look impressive, it’d still be considered a hot take to take either over Herbert.
