Joe Burrow has been a borderline great quarterback since he entered the NFL four picks before Tua in the 2020 NFL Draft. While he has dealt with some injuries, he's been to a Super Bowl and an AFC Championship Game in his career and is fresh off leading the league in passing yards and touchdowns.
Tua Tagovailoa, meanwhile, has only played one full season and has 40 fewer TD passes than Burrow despite entering the league the same year (2020) and both players having 38 career wins in the regular season. For Tua, it's about consistency, leadership, and drive; intangibles that Burrow has displayed since he stepped foot on an NFL field.
Burrow is part of the Netflix series Quarterbacks, which is airing now. One of the most recent clips shows off his desire to win, so much so that accepting a loss is not simply taken in stride. This is something many Dolphins fans want to see out of Tua.
In the clip, viewable by clicking the link above, Bengals head coach Zach Taylor tries to give a ticked-off Burrow a pep talk, but Burrow wasn't having any of it. He drops several F-Bombs, and makes it clear that he isn't going to settle for what he calls an "embarrassing" performance by his offense even though Cincinnati beat the Titans pretty convincingly.
Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa should steal a couple of pages from Joe Burrow
One of the biggest knocks on Tagovailoa is that he is far too laid back. Burrow is a world-class competitor. That isn't to say Tua likes to lose, but Burrow is clearly strung a little higher. The 27-year-old needs to find a happy medium between Burrow's competitive fire and his own demeanor.
Like his own head coach, Mike McDaniel, Tagovailoa tends to take an "aww-shucks" approach to dealing with teammates. He needs to be more vocal and hold his offense accountable for mental mistakes, just as Burrow did in the clip above.
Heading into year six of his NFL career, Tua is still the name that gets Dolphins fans bickering and arguing on social media, and he still has divided support in the mainstream media as well. Inside the building, the organization and locker room support him. No one has left the team and complained about his play, but they are also not raving about it.
If Tua wants to change his own narrative, he needs to be more vocal. Maybe not to Burrow's level, but he has to find his own voice, and it can't be the soft tone he has taken so far.