Evaluating Tua Tagovailoa’s First NFL Start

After all the hype and anticipation, Tua Tagovailoa’s first NFL start has come and gone. It happened November 1st, 2020, against Sean McVay, Jared Goff, Aaron Donald, and the Rams. The result was Tua and the Miami Dolphins getting the win, but it wasn’t entirely due to Tua’s play. The dominant defense and special teams stole the show. Here is what I was able to see when he was on the field.

Tua’s first pass attempt was a strip-sack forced by Aaron Donald. He also, in the same play, took his 1st major NFL hit. That showed he is healthy and ready to go moving forward. One of the things I saw during Tua’s first start was his resilience. After Tua’s first chance under center turned into Miami, ultimately being down seven. He didn’t let it get to him. He would capitalize and lead Miami on a scoring drive throwing his first career touchdown to Devante Parker when given the opportunity. Shortly after, a massive takeaway from their opportunistic defense.

This offense had the ball for a-little under 24 minutes of the game. Tua’s stat line ended with 12-22 93 yds 1 TD and 1 Turnover. With such a limited showing of Tua, it was hard to judge what kind of QB he could be, but we did see the qualities we had heard so much about leading up to this game. Pinpoint accuracy on critical passes. He had a few passes he did miss due to the front 7 of the Rams. He was not comfortable early and didn’t get time to settle in. When he had time to go through progressions, he looked sharp and appeared to stay away from forcing the ball downfield.

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Even though Tua’s first start had a limited offensive day, when this team was on the field, they could create a good run game at times to keep the pass rush at bay. Throughout the game, that would help open up the pocket for Tua to make his reads and accurately deliver the ball. He was very good at going through his reads when given the time. Something I think we will see as his development continues.

Often the play calling seemed to be out of sync during Tua’s first start; OC Chan Gailey was calling play action rollouts in hopes of taking shots. Tua seemed very comfortable rolling out and making throws with a defender in his face; it was only a matter of time before the rams caught on to the scheme. Unfortunately, the play calling limited Tua’s ability to drop back and read the defense. Not sure if that was a lack of play-calling or gameplan to keep Tua clean.

Again it wasn’t a big enough sample size to fully judge and see what Tua can do, but from what we did see in this limited outing, we were able to see spots of great things in his first career start. I look for him to continue to improve and get better as the season rolls forward. Plenty of big games to come, but it appears Tua is ready for his moment in Miami.

Read Also: (Miami Dolphins Draft grade)