In three years at Alabama – with less than two full seasons as the starting quarterback – Tua Tagovailoa set the school career record for touchdown passes. He also became the NCAA FBS record-holder for passing-efficiency rating. In his 10 starts in his final season with the Crimson Tide, Tagovailoa averaged 315.6 passing yards per game, even though he left the final one before halftime.
Yet in his first NFL start, Tagovailoa managed 93 yards on 22 passes. But in his second start on Sunday, with a different game plan for a different opponent, Tagovailoa threw only six more passes but had 248 passing yards as well as 35 rushing yards in the Miami Dolphins' 34-31 victory over the Arizona Cardinals.
Dolphins offensive coordinator Chan Gailey said the Miami quarterback played like the Alabama-version Tagovailoa on Sunday.
“It looks like it to me,” Gailey said during a Tuesday press conference. “I can’t see a real difference. Physically is the one thing that you had the concern about, and I think he kind of relieved all our thoughts about that the other night.”
TUA TAGOVAILOA: ‘THE STAGE WASN’T TOO BIG FOR HIM’
Tagovailoa left his final game at Alabama before halftime because he had sustained a dislocated hip and posterior wall fracture while being tackled against Mississippi State. Tagovailoa’s performance against Arizona included a 17-yard scramble a play before he threw an 11-yard touchdown pass as Miami tied the score 31-31 with 11:19 left to play.
Because of injuries and COVID-19 concerns, Tagovailoa operated the Miami offense without three wide receivers and two running backs who are contributors for the Dolphins, and his position coach wasn’t at the game either. But Gailey could see a difference between the Week 1 and Week 2 Tagovailoas, and he expects continued growth.
“I said this last week, but I believe it’s the truth: As he plays more, the game will slow down,” Gailey said. “He’s able to see things better. He’s able to feel the game. He has a tremendous feel for the game. That allows him to see some things and do some things and throw the ball to spots that other people might not do, so I think he just went out and played the game. He didn’t care who was there and who wasn’t there. He was just playing the game, and that’s what you like about him is he doesn’t think about adversity. He thinks about, ‘OK, how can we go be successful?’ And that’ll carry a person a long way.”
Despite the quarterback’s pedestrian stats, Miami won Tagovailoa’s first start 28-17 over the Los Angeles Rams. In the final two games before Tagovailoa entered the lineup, the Dolphins defeated the San Francisco 49ers 43-17 and New York Jets 24-0 with Ryan Fitzpatrick at quarterback.
On Sunday, Miami takes its four-game winning streak to Los Angeles to face the Chargers while square in the AFC playoff race in the season after being bad enough to obtain Tagovailoa with the fifth choice in the 2020 NFL Draft. The Dolphins are one of the four AFC teams with a 5-3 record with five teams holding better marks than that in the conference. Seven teams make the AFC playoffs this year.
The next step for Tagovailoa as the Dolphins tackle the second half of the 2020 season is a deepening knowledge of defenses, Gailey said.
“The next strides are he’s got to see and understand defenses more and more, and that just comes from doing it,” Gailey said. “We worked against the same defense all offseason. You didn’t have any preseason games to say, ‘OK, this is what another team does. This is what another team does.’ He’s getting that on the fly, so I think just understanding defenses, what they’re trying to do, how they’re trying to attack you, what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are, those types of things will be the strides I hope he makes here in the next few weeks.”
Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.
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