Tua Tagovailoa and the Miami Dolphins take on the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday night, live on Sky Sports NFL from 9.25pm, as part of a triple-header of NFL action, with coverage starting from 5pm
Sunday 8 November 2020 17:46, UK
The state of the quarterback position in the NFL has never been stronger. Or, certainly, the speed and ease at which young talent from the college ranks are taking to the NFL has never been more pronounced.
Joe Burrow, the No 1 overall pick in the 2020 Draft, is currently third in passing yards this season, with 2,272 - above Aaron Rodgers, above Tom Brady, Russell Wilson and Drew Brees too - while Justin Herbert, taken sixth overall by the Los Angeles Chargers, is in the top 10 in terms of TDs, with 15.
Defending Super Bowl champion (and MVP) Patrick Mahomes is only 25 years old, while reigning league MVP Lamar Jackson is younger still, at 23. There's also Deshaun Watson (25), Baker Mayfield (25), Josh Allen (24) and Kyler Murray (23), all consistently making plays each week.
Next off the NFL's quarterback conveyor belt is Tua Tagovailoa, who started his first game for the Miami Dolphins last weekend, but what do we know about the league's latest young star in the making?
Heading into the 2019 college football season, it was Tua, not Burrow, who was seen as the consensus No 1 pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, after a dazzling 2018 season with Alabama in which he passed for 3,966 yards and 43 TDs in only 15 games.
He finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting to Oklahoma QB, Murray - his opponent this Sunday as the Dolphins face the Cardinals, live on Sky Sports - but he won the Walter Camp Award and Maxwell Award, awarded to the top player in college football.
Tua's performances helped lead the Tide to their fourth consecutive National Championship appearance, though they'd lose to Clemson 44-16 with him throwing a couple of interceptions.
Tua then picked up where he left off in 2019 - 2,840 yards and 33 TDs through nine games - until disaster struck. In a matchup against Mississippi State, Tua dislocated his hip, with a fracture to the posterior wall, that required surgery and kept him out of the rest of the season.
It also hurt his draft stock, seeing Tua slip to the No 5 spot until, as luck would have it, the Dolphins - the very team expected to take him with the first pick, having lost their opening seven games of the 2019 season - were positioned there to take their man, their QB of the future.
Unlike Burrow and Herbert, Tua was afforded time to settle in Miami, learn the playbook and study behind veteran 37-year-old starter Ryan Fitzpatrick before the team was handed over to him.
Fitz had been responsible for the team's 0-7 to 5-11 turnaround the previous year that had resulted in them dropping back in the draft order, and so he was allowed to keep his job to open the 2020 season.
He played well. So well, in fact, that when head coach Brian Flores announced the team's decision to switch to Tua after six weeks, with the Dolphins competitive at 3-3, there were many left surprised by the move. None more so than Fitzpatrick, who described himself as 'heartbroken' to lose his job.
Tua's first start certainly saw him being thrown into the deep end, up against the Los Angeles Rams and, specifically, two-time NFL defensive player of the year, quarterback-sacking machine Aaron Donald.
On Tua's opening possession, Donald mauled his blocker, pushed him back into Tua's face and then stripped the ball - fumble!
The Rams would score a touchdown on the turnover, but then would be kept out of the endzone until late in the fourth quarter, by which point the Dolphins defence themselves had stepped up to ensure a 28-17 victory in Tua's first start - even if the rookie QB's stat line wasn't overly impressive (12 of 22 passing, 93 yards, one TD).
Reports have emerged since that the Dolphins made the change at quarterback only to give Tua a 10-game audition to prove he's their guy moving forward, but Flores has pushed back on such speculation.
Flores: "I'm just going to tell you about my thinking. We brought Tua here because we believe in him, same as all the other draft picks. We believe in developing players and improving players on a daily basis.
"That would be the opposite of giving someone a 10-game audition. I just don't see how somebody close to Dolphins thinking can say that this would be a 10-game audition. Not sure where or who that came from."
Tua: "I think there's room for improvement every day for me.
"I feel like I'm getting more comfortable in the huddle, talking to the guys, getting the plays out; the biggest thing for me is pocket presence - being able to just step up into what feels like pressure - and making the throws that I need for the receivers."
Former NFL offensive lineman Brian Baldinger: "He didn't have to do much heavy lifting [in his first game]. He made a couple of short throws, had a touchdown pass.
"After getting hit by Donald, I thought he handled things pretty well. He's got to be saying, 'phew, I got through that one ok'.
"All the heavy lifting was done by the defence, and that's what you hope for. Can the team around you be really good, so a rookie quarterback doesn't feel all this pressure to do it all by himself?
"I think he'll do more and player better in his second game, third game and so on."
Good Morning Football's Peter Schrager: "I want to see him play a little loose, have fun and make some plays.
"I didn't get that the first time he was out there, though I understand they won and, to get victories, he may need to be more conservative.
"But I would like to see a fireworks show."
GMF's Kyle Brandt: "Flores, in my opinion, will be the coach of the year.
"I don't think they put in Tua as this weird experiment to get ready for the draft next year. They put in Tua because they think he is awesome and he is more talented than Fitzpatrick."
Former NFL quarterback Chris Simms on Pro Football Talk: "Tua didn't have do do anything [against the Rams] - you can't blame him for that, the game just unfolded that way.
"He played it the right way; he had the mistake early on and he really only made two legit throws.
"He has good pop in his feet, but I can't say I sat there and thought 'the ball flies out of his arm and pops out of the screen'. And he looked a little small out there.
"I'm really excited to evaluate him, because I was on the fence on him during the draft process. Also, we've heard a lot of buzz about Herbert and Burrow to make you think their teams like what they're seeing. There hasn't been much buzz about Tua."
Tua has the chance to better prove his NFL credentials in a meeting with the man who pipped him to the 2018 Heisman Trophy, Murray, as the Dolphins (4-3) travel to Arizona to take on the Cardinals (5-2) on Sunday - live on Sky Sports NFL from 9.25pm.
They met once before in college, Tua's Alabama getting the better of Murray's Oklahoma in the 2018 Orange Bowl in a game in which he threw for 318 yards and four TDs in a 45-34 win.
Murray, a mobile quarterback much in the same vein as Tua, has since flourished in the NFL, being named Offensive Rookie of the Year last season, while he now has his team challenging for a playoff spot in 2020, much like Miami are in the AFC.
Both teams are on a three-game win streak coming into the contest; Murray's Cardinals own the NFL's No 1 offence in terms of yards per game (419.1), while the Dolphins are the league's stingiest defence, giving up just 18.6 per game.
And should Tua come out on top in the contest, Miami will have a real chance to run up a head of steam towards that ultimate goal of the postseason - the Dolphins aren't set to face another team with a winning record until a Week 14 meeting versus Mahomes and the Chiefs. Before then, Tua meets a couple of familiar faces in Herbert (Week 10) and Burrow (Week 13).
Brady is 43, Brees is 41 - the two facing off immediately after Tua and Murray's clash on Sunday night as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers host the New Orleans Saints - but the NFL's future at the quarterback position looks in safe hands with this exciting crop of young talent at the position.
Watch Tua Tagovailoa and the Miami Dolphins take on the Arizona Cardinals, live on Sky Sports NFL from 9:25pm on Sunday night. It's part of a triple-header of NFL action, with coverage starting at 5pm.
