What's Next for Tua Tagovailoa, Miami Dolphins?
Tua Tagovailoa was benched down the stretch during a losing season, which essentially meant his Miami Dolphins career was over. Teams don't do that with QBs they anticipate keeping around. Dak Prescott, Joe Burrow, Jared Goff, and others didn't see the same fate. It's over for Tagovailoa in Miami, there's no getting around it. But what's next for the costly veteran quarterback? The road ahead might be challenging to cross.
Tua Tagovailoa is open to a new team
In 2020, the Miami Dolphins took Tua Tagovailoa fifth overall. For much of the year, there was an idea that teams might "tank for Tua," and the Dolphins ended up snagging him one pick before Justin Herbert. That decision seems to have doomed them. All these years later, while Tagovailoa has had some success, it seems like his time is up, while Herbert is headed back to the playoffs with the Los Angeles Chargers.
Tagovailoa likely knows it's over. After the season, which was finished up by seventh-round rookie Quinn Ewers, concluded, the veteran quarterback admitted he would be open to playing elsewhere in the future. That's good, because if he starts again in the NFL, it will probably be for a different team. "That would be dope," he said via ESPN. "I would be good with it."
Options
Tagovailoa did clarify that he knew that would likely be on another team, but he didn't say he'd specifically request a trade. He probably doesn't have to. It will be hard, but the Dolphins will likely try everything they can to move on. That could mean taking a historic level of dead cap to cut him. The Denver Broncos did that two years ago with Russell Wilson. Now, they're the top seed in the AFC, so that method might not be as bad as it sounds.
The most likely option, though, is to trade him. There's a world where some teams will want him. The Pittsburgh Steelers make a lot of sense. So do the Indianapolis Colts. It's not totally implausible that the New York Jets might go for him, although drafting someone second overall is probably a better idea. The Los Angeles Rams are an interesting one. If they can get him for cheap, it wouldn't be the worst Matthew Stafford succession plan.
Mike McDaniel addresses Tua Tagovailoa failure
The Tua Tagovailoa and Mike McDaniel partnership was supposed to set the NFL on fire. For a little while, it did. McDaniel crafted a perfect offense for Tagovailoa, but that success didn't last. It didn't help that Tyreek Hill got older and much less explosive, but the offense had little to no success last season. McDaniel shoulders some of the blame, although it may not be his fault.
"I think there's a lot on the plate of a franchise quarterback, and ultimately I think it's my job to try to improve his play all of the time," the coach said. "I don't want to throw out a headline that is shortsighted or shortchanges how many layers there are to performing at the quarterback position. What I do know is, for the first time, I assessed whether or not he should be the starting quarterback on the team. That was as a result of an inability to get some things done.
McDaniel is not expected to be fired. He survived a midseason GM firing. He also survived Black Monday, so he'll likely remain the coach in 2026. "Does that mean that's a forever thing for him in terms of being able to execute stuff that he's executed in the past? No, it doesn't," he continued. "To have his game and the ownership of his game when it's at its height, that's something that we'll discuss. He'll have a lot of thoughts, and he'll have to work to get himself back to where we're all used to seeing. And I'll do my best in supporting that and the rest we shall see."
What's next for Tagovailoa remains to be seen. What's next for McDaniel is a new quarterback.
