Tua Tagovailoa: 5 QBs that improved from year one to year 2

We can wrap this up with a look at arguably the best quarterback to ever play the game. Of course, I’m talking about Miami Dolphins, Dan Marino.

Dan Marino is more than a legend in Miami. He is a living God to many Miami Dolphins fans so it might be pretty surprising to learn that Marino wasn’t always a Hall of Fame quarterback.

In 1983, Marino started 9 games winning seven of them. He threw for 2210 yards and 20 touchdowns with only six interceptions. He completed 58.4 % of his passes and showed enough to think, maybe this guy has something. Marino had very good surrounding talent and an incredible offensive line but still, he went through some rookie issues as well.

In his 2nd season, Marino made his mark on NFL history. He completed 64.2 % of his passes throwing for a then-record 48 touchdowns and another record 5,084 yards. He only threw 17 interceptions that year. Marino made the Pro Bowl his first five seasons in the NFL and four more after that.

While he truly outshined Tagovailoa’s rookie season by a pretty big margin, he also did so with more talent and a full off-season. Despite this, their statistical numbers are not all that different. Marino threw more passes, 296 to Tagovailoa’s 290. 20 touchdowns to Tua’s 11, 6 interceptions to Tua’s 5, 2,210 yards to Tua’s 1,814.

Overall, they were pretty close and now, maybe Tua Tagovailoa, with a full off-season and no COVID training camp policies in place, can take his next step like those mentioned earlier. The reality is, all of these players came into the league with similar expectations to those that Tua came into the league with, and all of them, in some way, struggled in their first season when they started. Yet none of them were given up on and none of them were cut or traded. Just some food for thought!