The Miami Dolphins are within the no-man’s land of quarterback conditions within the NFL, and so they might be dealing with a no-win scenario within the coming months — and seasons — with Tua Tagovailoa.
The difficulty is not that Tagovailoa is a nasty participant. Removed from it. He’s a top-half of the league quarterback and is coming off an enormous statistical season that noticed him lead the league in passing yards.
Quite a lot of groups would like to have him, particularly at his present wage.
The ultimate a part of that sentence, nonetheless, is the important thing.
“At his present wage.”
The difficulty that Miami has looming is that it’s inevitably going to signal Tagovailoa to a contract extension that can nearly actually make him one of many highest paid gamers within the league.
When that occurs quite a lot of Tagovailoa’s worth might probably disappear as he goes from productive participant on a discount contract in a high-flying offense, to a possible cap-crushing legal responsibility that doesn’t have the difference-making means to raise his group to the subsequent degree.
As we outlined in our “worst flaw” piece on Tuesday, Tagovailoa does not likely have the arm-strength or play-extending means that quite a lot of the AFC’s high quarterbacks (particularly Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson) presently have.
That places limitations on the Dolphins offense towards the league’s higher groups, and performs a giant function into why they’ve so badly struggled towards the league’s high groups the previous two years.
That doesn’t even get into his damage historical past and the dangers that come together with that.
This is likely one of the massive flaws with the best way the quarterback place is dealt with within the NFL proper now. There’s mainly no middle-class of passers on the place and it leaves groups like Miami in a scenario the place they actually haven’t got a very good resolution.
Tagovailoa is simply too good to toss apart. They will not discover a higher participant at a less expensive value on the open market, and so they have nearly no likelihood of touchdown one of many high quarterbacks within the 2024 NFL Draft. They nearly should maintain him.
However as a result of he’s too good to do away with and too good to exchange, that leaves them able the place they nearly should dramatically overpay him to maintain up with the quarterback market.
The times of with the ability to discover a mid-level quarterback at a mid-level value are lengthy gone. You both should get fortunate and discover someone on a rookie contract, or have an elite, top-five passer that’s worthy of the big-money contract.
The Dolphins are going to should pay first-tier cash to a second-tier participant. For a group that already has wage cap limitations, in addition to having to compete in an AFC that’s loaded with franchise quarterbacks, that might be a major long-term limitation.
