The Tua Debate Means There Is No Debate
Credit: Sam Navarro-USA TODAY Sports
Since the moment Tua Tagavoila was taken with the fifth pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, the Dolphins’ fan base has been divided. At first, the key question was “is he even capable of being a starting quarterback?” Now that Mike McDaniel has come to town and elevated the entire offense the, question has shifted. “Is he actually elite?” “Is he a superstar or just a product of McDaniel’s system?”
With the sort of money that is being thrown around in the quarterback market, these are the questions faced by every team that doesn’t have a no-brainer Hall of Famer under center. It all boils down to whether a team can spend the sort of roster-killing money their quarterback wants and still put a Super Bowl contender on the field.
Only two quarterbacks since 1994 have won a Super Bowl while absorbing more than 13% of the salary cap, per Adam Thompson. There was Steve Young, whose contract predated the salary cap itself, and last year’s Patrick Mahomes. The rest have either been veterans on team-friendly deals or young superstars still in their rookie contracts.
This is not to say that only Mahomes can succeed in that sort of cap situation. It’s to say that the talent requisite of doing so needs to be unquestioned. It’s not unreasonable to believe the other elite QBs on massive deals. Any one of Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, Josh Allen, or Lamar Jackson could bring home the Lombardi in their situation, two-decade-plus trend be damned. But if you don’t have an elite unquestioned great, you can’t spend the money the Tier 2 quarterbacks command and expect to compete.
In the world of NFL quarterbacks, nobody ever debates whether or not someone is great if the player is TRULY great. None of the elite quarterback leaders in this league made it to Year 4 with the media and their fan bases still questioning whether or not they were elite. Each of the above mentioned guys was a no-brainer, top-of-the-league superstar within their first 2 seasons.
That means no arguments on First Take about whether or not they have it. No fans on comment threads debating if they’re worth the money. It’s simple: They’re a future Hall of Famer. Pay the man.
But here we are, heading into Year 5 of Tua and the debate rages on. He has fallen squarely in the Kirk Cousins zone. This is the place where a quarterback’s greatness is always up for argument. The place where their salary is constantly questioned and their ability to rise above difficult circumstances is always under the microscope. This is the place where guys are good enough to win you games, but too expensive to win you big games with the roster their salary creates. Therefore, this is the place where debate thrives.
Minnesota’s fan base just spent years screaming at each other over who was to blame for the unsuccessful Cousins Era. The intense disagreement among them was the one and only consensus. No matter how you slice it, the burden that Cousins’ contract put on the roster prevented them from achieving the ultimate goal. He walked into a team that had just been in the NFC Championship, yet over his entire run he won one playoff game as key pieces became cap casualties to his monster deal. Still, as Kirk left for Atlanta the debate raged on in Minnesota. “Was Kirk worth it?”
He was not. You can see this same dynamic playing out now with the Dallas Cowboys and Dak Prescott.
When it comes to giant contracts for quarterbacks, greatness needs to be undisputed. When it comes to greatness, the question is answered early and almost never debated beyond that. The true greats get compared. “Is Burrow better than Allen?” “Is Lamar the greatest two-way threat of all time?” And so on. We don’t waste our time asking if they have what it takes to be the best of the best, they answered that question years ago. There is no one in Kansas City, Cincinnati, San Diego, Baltimore, or Buffalo questioning whether or not they should’ve spent their money on a max quarterback.
Tua is a very good football player and seems to be a great guy in the community. He’s fun to watch and he’s fun to root for. But the NFL is a math equation. There is a number at which extending Tua makes sense for Miami, and it’s (at least) under 13% of the cap. The problem is that it isn’t likely that is the number Tagovailoa and his camp are interested in.
Unfortunately, the fact that there is and has been a heated debate around Tua is all the answer you need. The Dolphins’ skill players are too good, and their head coach is too great to commit so much of their resources to someone who doesn’t pass the consensus general public eye test.
That’s not going to be Tua. There are just no examples of quarterbacks this far into their career who didn’t pass it, but would later on. Until they land a generational talent at quarterback, Miami would be wise to prioritize team-friendly contracts at the position and build up the rest of the roster to support whoever is throwing the ball.
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