ESPN’ Tua Tagovailoa Picked Steelers over dolphins -NF Report …..

Tua Tagovailoa Is Finally Getting a Chance to Prove He’s a Franchise QB

The Dolphins’ quarterback is in a better system and no longer worried about losing his job. He’s doing all you could ask for with the opportunity.

The Dolphins are back, in the perfect kind of midnight Mountain West–shootout type of way that endeared them to us so many weeks ago, before the franchise slogged through its own version of the pain cave and had to play a handful of weeks without a tenable solution at quarterback.

Tua Tagovailoa is back, too, and not just in the he’s-adequately-managing-this kind of way, but, in a new role that we may be a little unfamiliar seeing him in: franchise quarterback. Count me among those who knew Mike McDaniel’s history as Kyle Shanahan’s secret weapon and envisioned Tagovailoa operating with suddenly heroic powers, but ultimately wondered what the offense would be like if someone more elite was pulling the trigger. A real quarterback, as we might have crudely put it.

Well, on Sunday, Tagovailoa may have had the best statistical game for a quarterback in franchise history. He is the only Dolphins QB ever to have thrown for 350-plus yards, three or more touchdown passes and no interceptions while maintaining a completion percentage of 80% or better. No one is saying he’s better than Dan Marino, we’re just saying Marino has never had this perfect of a 60-minute stretch in his 17-season career.

And while it’s absolutely ludicrous to make any sweeping conclusions about Tagovailoa versus what is capable of anyone in a McDaniel offense, we did see side-by-side examples of the team playing with the equivalent of a replacement-level player in Skylar Thompson and an above-replacement-level player in Teddy Bridgewater (who, by the way, was one of the most efficient players in football last year in a stale Pat Shurmur offense). Miami is markedly better with Tagovailoa. He is the best option for this team right now. For once in his professional career, he is needed more than he needs the graciousness of a coach willing to actually work with him and not ben