As we head into the end of Week 10 of the 2022 NFL season, there are two things we need to touch on that we may not have expected when the season began. The Miami Dolphins are behind only the Kansas City Chiefs in Football Outsiders’ opponent-adjusted DVOA rankings on offense (they’re first in Passing DVOA), and quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is doing just about everything expected of a quarterback at a thermonuclear level in head coach Mike McDaniel’s offense.
The statistics are… extreme. Tagovailoa currently ranks first among quarterbacks in both DVOA and DYAR, and then, there’s all this:
Here is where @Tua's 2022 season ranks across the NFL in the past decade:
Passer Rating: 3rd (118.4)
3rd Down Passer Rating: 1st (149.8)
4th Quarter Passer Rating: 7th (123.2)
Red Zone Passer Rating: 7th (118.8)
Yards Per Attempt: 4th (9.13)
— Brett Brecheisen (@bbrech) November 14, 2022
So… that’s all pretty good. In Miami’s 39-17 Sunday demolition of the Cleveland Browns, Tagovailoa completed 25 of 32 passes for 285 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 135.0, With that performance, Tagovailoa became the second quarterback in pro football with at least 275 passing yards, three touchdown passes and a passer rating of 135-or-higher in three consecutive games. The other guy to do it was Kurt Warner of the St. Louis Rams in 1999, which was Warner’s NFL MVP and Super Bowl MVP season.
There are those who will tell you that Tagovailoa has been an unusually fortunate quarterback — that’s he’s a “point guard” in a pejorative sense, who’s benefiting from McDaniel’s schematic brilliance, and a group of receivers led by Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle. But has Tagovailoa has developed and progressed in McDaniel’s offense, and with these receivers, it’s becoming ever more clear that this version of Tagovailoa is actually the perfect quarterback for this offense, and he brings as much or more to the table than anybody in the building.
Let’s cast aside the “system quarterback” dings — because every quarterback is a system quarterback — and look at how Tua Tagovailoa has become perhaps the best quarterback in the NFL… right now.
Seeing, processing, and delivering.
“He is really seeing the field well,” McDaniel said of Tagovailoa after the Browns game. “I think sometimes how fast he is playing and how fast he is processing, you cut the tape on it, it looks like he might be throwing to No. 1 or 2, but he is progressing through eligibles 1 through 5 in his progression with lightning speed. That’s really making it frustrating for a defensive front. You’re in pass rush mode and you can’t get to them; that can wear on you. So he is doing a lot of things visually, manipulating defenders, making really good throws and getting the ball out.”
Tagovailoa’s total comfort in this offense showed up on this 29-yard pass to Waddle early in the second quarter. The Dolphins had third-and-4 from their own 35-yard line, and given the general tendencies of this passing game, you wouldn’t blame the Browns for expecting a shorter pass to move the sticks. Tagovailoa exploited that thought process on the deep pass.
Before the throw, Tagovailoa used his eyes to manipulate safety Grant Delpit away from where he wanted the ball to go. When Hill went in motion from left to right, that sealed Delpit’s responsibility in Cleveland’s Cover-6 defense — he had to take Hill up top. Waddle was to the other side in a twins alignment with Sherfield, and that’s where Tagovailoa wanted the ball to go on the deep post. That look from Tagovailoa, and Hill’s motion, opened everything up for Waddle to catch the ball with rhythm. Sherfield’s vertical route took safety John Johnson away from Waddle, which added to the open nature of the throw.
Then, there was this gorgeous 14-yard touchdown pass to Trent Sherfield with 37 seconds left in the first half. Hill was Tagovailoa’s first read on the out route to the left side, but Tagovailoa saw — and wanted — more out of this.
“On that particular play it looked like a palms look where if Tyreek broke out, they could play Cover-2, and if not, they would play Cover-4,” Tagovailoa said after the fact. “So it really helped so that Tyreek was also in the slot on that side — we didn’t know if they were going to double or cloud it or play 4. So I did my footwork, looked at Tyreek, and was trying to feel through Tyreek with the corner [Greg Newsome]. I felt like he was squatting, so I gave Trent an opportunity, and Trent made a big play for us in that instance. So I’m really happy that he finally got a touchdown as a Dolphin.”
Sherfield knew that he had to be on the lookout for anything and everything, because his quarterback is seeing things so well, and letting them play out.
“You always have to be alert when Tua is in the game. That ball wasn’t even supposed to come to me. I just knew reading the corner, seeing that he kind of came down on Tyreek, I knew that the ball was going to be in the air. So I just looked straight up in the air, and I just knew it was there. Tua trusted in me to go make a play. It was a great ball — beautiful ball. I had no choice but to catch it. Major props to Tua for that ball.”
Major props, indeed. Major props should also go to right guard Robert Hunt, who prevented Cleveland alpha-edge defender Myles Garrett from crushing his quarterback.
Tua Tagovailoa's 14-yard touchdown pass to Trent Sherfield was seriously impressive. But it doesn't happen if RG Robert Hunt doesn't adjust to Myles Garrett's demonic spin move, which had beaten RT Brandon Shell. If Hunt doesn't stone Garrett, Tua's throw becomes a scramble. pic.twitter.com/3QCpqUFdS3
— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) November 14, 2022
Speeding without training wheels.
Tagovailoa played in an offense at Alabama that was fairly RPO-dependent, so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that the Dolphins dressed up their offense to that effect after taking him with the fifth overall pick in the 2020 draft. Last season, only Patrick Mahomes and Ben Roethlisberger had more RPO dropbacks than Tagovailoa’s 73; he completed 53 of 72 passes for 559 yards, 192 air yards, two touchdowns, and one interception.
Through the first nine weeks of the 2022 season, Tagovailoa ranked fifth in the NFL in RPO dropbacks with 25. Aaron Rodgers ranked first with 45, so it’s been on McDaniel’s mind to get Tagovailoa off the one-step plan and give him more complex and complete passing concepts to digest.
Tagovailoa has been a willing and effective student. On this 29-yard touchdown pass to Waddle against the Detroit Lions (yeah, we know) in Week 8, Waddle is running a switch with Hill in the left slot — Waddle running the vertical route, and Hill with the crosser. There is no play-action, no motion, no schematic crutches of any kind. Tagovailoa has to place this ball to Waddle over the head of cornerback AJ Parker on a dime, and that’s exactly what he does.
This play design on Tagovailoa’s 18-yard touchdown to Waddle against the Chicago Bears in Week 9 does give him the benefit of boot-action, but it’s also a play in which Tagovailoa has to hit his target with timing and rhythm downfield. Waddle and Hill run deep double-crossers from the right slot, and tight end Mike Gesicki runs a bender from the Y-Iso position on the left side. This is a very Chiefs-style play, and Tagovailoa finds Waddle in the deep as you’d expect Patrick Mahomes to.
There was also this 39-yard pass to Hill against the Bears, which McDaniel explained after the game better than I could.
“There are certain times where you can utilize [Hill’s] unparalleled zero-to-60 burst. In that particular play, he was an option for the quarterback that if they gave us a certain coverage and they were attacking internally with man coverage, attacking internally on the inside part of the field, that he’d be able to find his way through traffic and we could layer something out there. It’s something that you’re not really afforded that option to do a play like that that comes up a ton. With our players, we’re able to do some pretty cool stuff that is just kind of like abstract creative thought with a lot of guys. But with him in particular, he can find his way through traffic, and then the key is that him and Tua are on the same page, which they were, and it was a very big play in the second quarter.”
When you’re successfully executing “abstract creative thought” with your passing game, it’s a good sign that you have total trust in your quarterback, and your quarterback is repaying that trust with results.
How Tagovailoa can be even better.
Going back to his time at Alabama, there has been a knock on Tagovailoa’s deep arm that does have legitimacy to it. He’s capable of making just about every throw but he will have floaters that his fastest receivers will have to hold up and come back to get. There are also instances in which Tagovailoa has open shots downfield that he doesn’t take. That’s true of any quarterback, but in this case, with this offense, it’s so much about explosive plays, and you want your quarterback taking advantage.
This 18-yard pass to Sherfield in the first quarter against the Browns is a perfectly good play, but Tagovailoa also had a clean pocket and the time to wait for Hill to absolutely nuke cornerback Denzel Ward further downfield from an H-back location. This is such a wonderfully-schemed play, you’d like to see the Dolphins benefit that much more from it.
It’s not a fatal flaw, but if Tagovailoa is able to add some zip to his intermediate and deep passes with mechanics and conditioning, that offense could be even more ridiculous.
The Dolphins' offense has its perfect captain.
There’s a separate — and fascinating — article to be written about everything McDaniel is scheming up this year. The concepts and deployments of players are as interesting and effective as any you’ll find in football today. But it’s also time to zoom in on Tua Tagovailoa, the steps he’s taken, and how he has taken this offense by the scruff of the neck and made it his own.
“I think it’s a testament to the work that we all put in day in and day out,” Tagovailoa said after the win over the Browns. “From after a game like this, you know, coming in tomorrow. On a day like Monday getting together as an offensive group, talking about the things that we need to improve on, and then carrying that over to Wednesday and then all the way leading to Sunday. So it’s really an effort for everyone as to why we’re all having success.”
The 7-3 Dolphins find themselves atop the AFC East, with a bye next Sunday. When they return to the field at Hard Rock Stadium on November 27 to face the Houston Texans, Tagovailoa will likely hear more of the “M-V-P!” chants he’s been hearing from the home crowds of late.
“There’s no doubt I heard that,” he said. “It’s flattering, but what we came to do and what we came to accomplish, it’s not accomplished yet. It’d be cool, but we have bigger goals and aspirations on what we want to do as a team.”
Easier to do when you have the right — and quite possibly the NFL’s best — quarterback.
