When Jared Goff signed his four-year, $212 million extension with the Detroit Lions, the baseline was set for the second tier of quarterback contracts. The “tier” is more of a reflection of the quality of play because the price is still near the top of the market. Goff’s $53 million per year average is second among quarterbacks, as is his three-year cash flow of $165 million. His $73 million signing bonus is a record.
While the merits of the second-tier quarterback contracts eclipsing $50 million per year can be debated, that’s where the market has been set. With that line drawn, the question has turned to whether that price is conducive to good roster-building. Can a quarterback who isn’t overwhelmingly the reason his team wins games be worth that much money while leaving enough to build a suitable roster around him?
Tua, Dolphins Got Next
Fair or not, the next quarterback to face this debate will be Tua Tagovailoa. The former fifth-overall pick is set to play 2024 on his fifth-year option. A deal is likely to get done this offseason because most teams do not let former first-round picks play through the final year of their contracts.
Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert, the other quarterbacks taken early in the 2020 draft, have already been paid. Both Burrow and Herbert signed extensions worth more than $200 million last offseason. Herbert’s average is $52.5 million per year, while Burrow leads the position at $55 million. Tagovailoa’s new deal is going to be somewhere in that range.
By production, Tagovailoa warrants that spot. During the past two seasons under Mike McDaniel, Tagovailoa is third among quarterbacks in EPA per play behind Brock Purdy and Dak Prescott, per TruMedia.
But it’s not just a question of production. If it was, Tagovailoa would unquestionably be considered one of the league’s top quarterbacks, and there would be little debate about his next contract.
Like Goff, Tagovailoa is surrounded by questions about how much the quarterback contributes to the success of the offense. However, unlike Goff, the Miami Dolphins have built an offense that allows Tagovailoa’s strengths to help cover up the weaknesses rather than have the rest of the roster lift up the quarterback.
Goff and Tagovailoa each can struggle under pressure, so their offenses are structured around keeping the quarterback away from it as much as possible. Detroit invested in one of the league’s best offensive lines and just rewarded right tackle Penei Sewell with a top-of-the-market extension. The Dolphins have the eighth-least cap space dedicated to the offensive line this season.
Dolphins Fast On the Draw
The way Miami gets around its offensive line and still features the lowest pressure rate in the league is the quickest passing game in the NFL. During the past two seasons. Tagovailoa’s average of 2.36 seconds to throw has been the lowest in the league.
His rate of 63.4 percent of throws under 2.5 seconds is behind only Joe Burrow and Trevor Lawrence in that time. What makes the Miami version of the quick passing game so different is how it still pushes the ball down the field.
On throws under 2.5 seconds, Tagovailoa’s aDOT is 6.4, more than half a yard above the next-highest quarterback (5.8). On top of that, he’s third in EPA per play on those attempts.
Via The 33rd Team
The Dolphins can get away with that partly because of the speed at wide receiver. Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle. Within 2.5 seconds of the snap, Miami’s receivers can already be down the field. It doesn’t work this way for most other offenses in the league within 2.5 seconds of the snap.
Via The 33rd Team
Because of this and the evolving motions the Dolphins use to create space and open throwing lanes, many write off Tagovailoa’s contributions as a product of his environment. But there’s a case to be made that he plays a part in creating that environment rather than just being a beneficiary of it.
Few players can get the ball out as quickly and accurately as Tagovailoa has over the past two seasons. The quick release allows the Dolphins to play the way they do and protects the offensive line from having to sustain blocks. A slower processor or a slower release wouldn’t be able to run this offense at this efficiency.
It wasn’t a large sample, but we saw Teddy Bridgewater get some run in this offense during the 2021 season. Bridgewater has been a plenty capable passer during his NFL career but the offense did not have the same explosion with the veteran behind center. Skylar Thompson also highlighted what an inexperienced quarterback would look like in this system.
Neither quarterback was able to get the ball out as quickly as Tagovailoa or do it nearly as often. That led to pressure rates that hovered around double Tagovailoa’s, which made everything else in the offense more difficult.
Via The 33rd Team
On only plays with Hill and Waddle on the field, Bridgewater and Thompson both averaged more than 3.0 seconds to throw and were pressured on over 50 percent of their dropbacks while trying to push the ball down the field.
This isn’t the only offense Tagovailoa has been able to make work. In 2021, the Dolphins decided the best way to get around the line and play to Tagovailoa’s strengths with only Waddle in the receiving corps was to spam RPOs. The offense was quick but in a more unwatchable fashion.
The throws were short, and the Dolphins rarely threw down the field. But because of Tagovailoa’s accuracy, the offense was around average, instead of one of the worst offenses in the league, which it could have been under worse play at quarterback.
The arrival of McDaniel brought an offense that built on the quarterback’s strengths and heavy vocal support. That’s continued through the past two seasons and into the offseason.
A Few Questions Remain
If there’s a holdup for the sustainability of this offense, it’s how there has been a collapse late in the season in each of the past two years. Because this offense can be so specifically fine-tuned, one aspect getting thrown off could sink the entire unit.
Two years ago it was Tagovailoa’s injuries. This past year the offensive line struggled, and there was constant pressure late in the season. That derailed the offense, and there weren’t enough counters to make up for it at the time.
If there was another concern, it was Tagovailoa’s health. He had concussion issues in 2022 but made it through the 2023 season healthy. Last offseason, he bulked up in an effort to put on more muscle and absorb hits better. But this offseason, it’s been reported that he dropped weight in an effort to be more mobile.
Scrambling is never going to be a big part of Tagovailoa’s game, but it could be part of the plan to make more things work out of structure if the protection breaks down in 2024. That could be part of what’s added to this offense to make it better for the coming year.
Miami Dolphins wide receivers Jaylen Waddle, left, and Tyreek Hill USA TODAY Sports
Stability Likely in System, Pieces
There are “system” quarterbacks that fit like mittens. There are many sizes of hands that can slide in and get the job. But the Tagovailoa-Dolphins fit is more like a glove. The offense helps, but the quarterback also plays a much larger part than given credit for.
The benefit of Miami’s current setup is that the key pieces won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. Hill is in his 30s, but Waddle still has two years left on his rookie deal, and unless there’s a catastrophe, McDaniel isn’t going anywhere. This is part of a Dolphins team that started to shed salary this offseason to pave the way for the next era in Miami. That will continue into 2025, where they’re currently $11 million over the cap without a Tagovailoa contract on the books.
It would be tough to trust a younger and inexperienced quarterback to immediately jump in and make this offense go. There are probably only a few veterans who could lift this offense higher than what it’s already been. Dak Prescott could potentially be a free agent this offseason and has often been suggested as “McDaniel’s Matthew Stafford” alluding to the changes Sean McVay was able to make with the Rams after trading Goff and replacing him with Stafford in the Rams offense.
That would be quite a risk to hold out for that one possible player. The most likely outcome is that Miami strikes a deal before the coming season.
A sticker price of more than $200 million should not shock anyone for a quarterback like Tagovailoa. With the current system in place in Miami, it wouldn’t be a shock if it works out, too.