Tua Tagovailoa lacks the most important ability… availability

Tua Tagovailoa had a good year as the starting quarterback for the Miami Dolphins, besides the fact that he only played in 13 games this year.

I wrote an article yesterday on how the Miami Dolphins should trade Tua and sign Tom Brady. My fellow Dolphins fans did not like to say the least.

After reading the many, many comments, I have to come to believe that people have misunderstood what my point was.

Is Tua a good quarterback?

Yes he is.

Can the Dolphins win games when Tua is the starter?

Yes, we saw them do that this year.

Is Tua good enough to get the Dolphins to the playoffs consistently?

It is yet to be seen, but if he continues to play like he did this year then he obviously can.

My problem with Tua is not his ability to play the quarterback position. My problem with Tua is the he can not stay on the field. We have seen this since college.

Here is a list of all the injuries Tua has had since college.

In March of 2018 he had surgery on his finger, in October of 2018 he sprained his knee, in December 2018 he sprains his right ankle so bad they perform the tightrope procedure to fix it, in October 2019 he sprains his right ankle again and has another tightrope surgery, in November 2019 he has the hip injury. He had hip surgery at 21 years old!!

That is not a sign of good health to come. By the way, those are just his college injuries. Now, let us look at the NFL injuries:

In November 2020 he injured his thumb, in September 2021 he fractures his ribs, in November 2021 he fractures his middle finger, then you have this year where he has had multiple head injuries.

For a guy who is only 25 years old that is an alarmingly long list. Especially when you take into consideration that he has had multiple head injuries and surgery on his hip.

The problem is not how he looks on the field. The problem is that he is not on the field enough.

He can post a high passer rating, throw for a bunch of touchdowns, and throw for a ton of yards, but if he is not on the field in the playoffs then who cares?

It is a long physical season. It is 17 weeks of bone crushing hits. Bone crushing hits to a guy who has struggled with injury from 2018 to the present day.

I know what the argument is against this. “Just build a better offensive line and he will not get hurt.”

That would make sense, but he played at Alabama behind an outstanding offensive lie and he still managed to get hurt multiple times.

That may be because he is smaller, or maybe he just has the injury bug. That sadly happens to some guys. Either way his inability to stay healthy is a major issue that costed the Dolphins multiple games this year.

I know that this fan base loves Tua. He is the best quarterback we have seen in a Dolphins jersey since the great Dan Marino. He is a good player, but as long as he misses six games a year, like he did this year, it is hard for me to like him as the future of this franchise.

Maybe the people who commented on my last article were right. Maybe Tom Brady is not the answer. Either way you can not argue that Tom Brady is incredibly durable.

From 2001 to 2022 he has only missed games in three seasons. You may think that Tua is currently a better quarterback than Tom Brady. We can agree to disagree on that, but I think everyone would rather have 17 games of Brady, rather than 10 to 13 games of Tua.

You can be as great as you want, but it does not matter if you are not on the field. That is the ultimate issue with Tua. No matter which way you slice it, he can not stay on the field. It has been an issue since he was at Alabama.

Now, with him playing more games, against better more physical players people expect him to not get hurt. That makes no sense.

Once again, I like Tua. He is a good quarterback, but he can not stay on the field. For that reason I would move on from him.