Mike McDaniel Perfectly Shuts Down Tua Game Manager Question
Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports
How are we still having this conversation?
There may be no more overused yet more misunderstood term in sports than “game manager.” Talking heads on TV and fans in their living room love to debate quarterbacks’ value and ability by demeaning them with said title. Generally the people making this comment, much like myself, have no ability to properly break down an NFL game film with any semblance of nuance. They just see a guy throw short and shout the term.
There has been no quarterback this side of Kurt Cousins who has been saddled with the term more than Dolphins’ starter Tua Tagovailoa. Despite being one of the league’s most efficient throwers(when healthy) while running an offense led by the most creative play caller, the term just keeps coming up. In his Monday press conference Mike McDaniel was once again asked about the overused trope and perfectly dissected exactly what game managing means in the context of the Bills defense.
“I think we found the hard way…the last couple years, that… the Buffalo Bills will force bad things to happen – sack-fumbles, picks – if they want to take something away.” McDaniel said. “And football in general is about maximizing over-play and if you’re going to over-play with depth, you have to execute in high-percentage completions and yards after the catch that aren’t necessarily the cross-court gigantic plays but are the ‘throw it for four and you get seven.’
And that’s kind of the art of [Buffalo’s] particular style of defense when they want to play the way they’ve proven to have success against our offense… I thought it was a great display of Tua’s (Tagovailoa) evolution of finding completions and utilizing his accuracy and challenging the areas of the field that weren’t over-populated. And with a team that plays with a bunch of quarterback vision that relies on turnovers, it’s absolutely imperative to be able to pass the ball efficiently and take advantage of the areas where they’re voiding. So I think that’s an art.
What you’re saying – managing the game against zone defenses, against really good zone defenses you can’t manage the game in the way of just finding checkdowns because if you go to the checkdown too early in the play, they play deep and will sprint forward and you’ll get a two-yard gain. So you have to play the position appropriately to get the ball to the eligibles in the time of the play and that is an art form that many, many quarterbacks find very difficult particularly against the Buffalo Bills.
So I thought yesterday was a great example of aggressively taking what the defense gives you and[Tua] was able to have some success that we haven’t had in the past based upon his commitment to his craft and being aggressive to all eligibles based upon over-play.”
Perfect response from the coach who is mired in his worst season. There is a lot going wrong in Miami right now, but Tua being a game manager is not on that list. It’s good to see push back against a narrative that is beyond old.
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