Grading Tua Tagovailoa's week two performance against the Patriots
The Dolphins came out with a win Sunday night in a game against the Patriots but if they are going to continue their winning ways Tua will need to clean some things up.
Tua threw for 249 yards with one touchdown and one interception Sunday against the Patriots defense. This was against a Patriots defense that was missing its top cornerback on Sunday and had his replacement get injured during the game. Any other week this is a good outing for Tua and enough for the Dolphins to come out with a win, but when the defense is playing its fourth string corner I expected more out of him and the team will need more out of him in the future.
Early in the fourth quarter, Tua took a deep shot to Tyreek Hill that inevitably ended up being an interception to Christian Gonzalez. While taking the deep shot to Tyreek is necessary at times, especially to soften up the defense to open up more plays, this was a bad play by Tua.
Watching the film the entire defense was at least 15 yards deep and after the little play action to the back, Tua should have dumped it off to Devon Achane in the flat. Achane had no one within 15 yards of him and plenty of room to get to speed. This offense has an emphasis on speed and taking the deep shot but getting it to one of the fastest players in the league with that much space is too easy.
Lastly, the snapping issues continued in Week 2. Tua fumbled two snaps against the Patriots. Both of which ended up being drive killers. Tua under center has fumbled two snaps in as many weeks and also blatantly dropped a perfect snap and fell on top of it. The off-target snaps are out of his control, but when it's a perfect snap he needs to bring it in and not stall the offense.
In total, I give Tua a solid "B+" for the win against the Patriots. For the most part, he took what the defense gave him and kept the chains moving and the Dolphins offense in control but I can't overlook the errors. The forced pass on first down to Tyreek that was intercepted and the fumbled snaps are issues that need to be cleaned up.
If you take away these errors Tua likely finishes with a 300-yard game and at least one more touchdown for the Dolphins in route to a convincing win against a divisional opponent and an "A" grade.