Hyde: Tua should vie for QB — now
Tagovailoa should try for No. 1 QB job right away
hat now?
What exactly is
Plan A for for Tua Tagovailoa?
He’s drafted, signed, marketed enough that his jerseys rank first and second in NFL sales (Tom Brady is motivated by being No. 8) and even bought his mother a Cadillac Escalade for Mother’s Day (talk about pressure for a Father’s Day gift next month).
So what’s the Miami Dolphins’ plan for him his rookie year?
And, please, don’t decree Tagovailoa’s frail body belongs on the shelf to rehab his rookie year, like some endangered species, while his offensive line develops.
Please don’t flatly say he should be redshirted his first season as if to preserve future eligibility. Please don’t be an imbecile.
If the doctors say Tagovailoa can play — and that’s all we heard from his camp leading into the draft — there’s no reason Tagovailoa should simply be told to sit in the corner until next year. Not the fifth pick in the draft. Not a guy with that talent. Sorry, no way.
The plan should be for him to compete for the job immediately. He’s hopefully competing now against Ryan Fitzpatrick
and Josh Rosen, at least virtually. He should be impressing, too, if everything about him rings true.
Sure, in May, Fitzpatrick is the favorite as the Game 1 starter. He was the engine to 2019. Coach Brian Flores respects him. Finally, this uncertain offseason is in such flux for even practice, much less preseason, that the normal learning curve for a young player is probably extended longer.
So the issue probably isn’t if Fitzpatrick starts the season. It’s if Fitzpatrick ends the season. Does he regress to his mediocre ways? Does, at 37 and inviting collisions, he even make it healthy through another year?
Also, does Tagovailoa look so good in practice he can’t be held back? Because you want the fifth pick to look good enough to make you hesitate. Coach Brian Flores only plays to win, as we know after last year, and isn’t afraid of bold decisions.
Some will suggest conventional wisdom demands a quarterback sit his first year. This is crapola. You can come up with any anecdotal evidence you want to say how a quarterback should grow up.
Patrick Mahomes is Exhibit A for this sit-the-year camp. Mahomes sat all but the last game his rookie year in Kansas City. But the context also was Kansas City was 12-4 and fighting for the top playoff seed behind veteran Alex Smith, who had a Pro Bowl year. So that situation was riskier to put in a rookie.
Lamar Jackson, too, sat on the bench to start his Baltimore career. But he’s not Exhibit B in this argument to sit the whole year. He wowed teammates in practice from the start. After nine games, veteran starter Joe Flacco had a hip injury, Jackson came in and that was that. Jackson helped a struggling team to the playoffs.
Finally, there’s Russell Wilson. He’s right with Mahomes as the game’s best quarterback. Wilson didn’t sit one play of his rookie year in 2012. He rose from a thirdround pick to start his first game. What’s more, looking back, coach Pete Carroll regrets not trusting the rookie Wilson more.
“I wish I saw the signs a little sooner,” said Carroll in 2016. “I wish I would have responded to what he was showing us and cut him loose a little sooner. The Chicago game (in Week 13) is still so vividly in my mind, what he did in that game, to get us back in. It really showed us an elevation of quarterback play.
“Russell kind of took over the game, and I remember saying to (offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell]) during the game, ‘Cut him loose, don’t hold him back, let’s go.’ You could just feel it. I just wish I could have felt it earlier. Then we could have been better earlier.”
The lesson here is the player will tell you. Not conventional wisdom. Not anecdotal stories.
The starting point, as long as he’s medically cleared, is letting Tagovailoa compete for the starting job. Don’t start with this idea of sitting him down. Don’t construct artificial barriers on how others did it.
Let Tua show why you picked him fifth. Let him say who he is and what he can do.
That should be Plan A.