Photo by Tennessee Titans, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsDex Ponce: The National Media Is Crowning a Quarterback Making $1.2 Million
Yahoo Sports says the Tua Era begins. Blogging Dirty says he's already won the job. The man has 59 interceptions in 76 career starts. Dex has questions.
Everybody wants to crown Tua Tagovailoa and I'm sitting here staring at the number 59.
Fifty-nine interceptions in 76 career starts. That's 0.78 picks per start for his career. Last year in Miami it was worse -- 15 interceptions in 14 starts. More turnovers than games played. Let that land.
Yahoo Sports published a training camp preview headlined "The Tua Tagovailoa Era Begins." Blogging Dirty says his minicamp was so sharp it might "settle the QB battle before it begins." Clutch Points says mandatory minicamp proved he should get the job.
An era. For a guy on a one-year, $1.215 million contract. Miami is paying $54 million in dead money just to make him somebody else's problem. That's not a coronation. That's a tryout.
Miles already showed you the scheme works. Stefanski's installation is real. The boot-action, the 12 personnel, the pre-snap motion -- all of it is schematically coherent. I'm not arguing the offense. I'm arguing the guy running it.
Miami had McDaniel getting the ball out of Tua's hands in under 2.5 seconds on 62% of his throws. League average is around 44%. They designed an entire system around hiding his limitations and he still threw 59 picks.
I had Tua at 67% to be the Week 1 starter back in May. I'm raising it to 75%. The minicamp head start is real and Penix is still rehabbing his third ACL surgery. Third. You can't win a competition you can't physically enter.
But here's where it gets uncomfortable. I also have the Falcons at 85% to win the NFC South. That prediction assumed a functional quarterback. Fifty-nine career interceptions is not what I had in mind.
I'm 58% sure Tua's turnover habit follows him to Atlanta.
The best version of this -- the 2023 version, 4,624 yards and 29 touchdowns -- was the only fully healthy season of his career. One season out of five. The optimists are betting on the outlier. The 59 interceptions are the trend line.
Stefanski asked about handing out jobs in June and said no. Smart. Because the question isn't whether Tua can complete passes in shorts against air. The question is what happens when a safety disguises Cover 2 and Tua's brain says checkdown instead of the open post route.
Schemes don't fix habits. Habits show up in September.
I'm keeping the NFC South at 85%. The roster Cunningham built is that good. But my 85% has a Tua-sized asterisk on it now, and I'm not pretending otherwise.
Bookmark this. Training camp opens July 29. The pads will answer what the shorts couldn't.
Tell me I'm wrong.
The Tilt
59 career interceptions on a prove-it deal isn't an era -- it's an audition.
— Dex Ponce
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