Tua Tagovailoa already raising ceiling of Dolphins offense

Tua Tagovailoa proved he can raise the Dolphins’ ceiling in Week 9.

Tua Tagovailoa‘s first start in Week 8 did not inspire much confidence the decision to promote him to the starting quarterback role was the right one, however, his Week 9 performance appears to have vindicated head coach Brian Flores, the fifth overall pick producing a display to suggest he can elevate the Miami Dolphins to legitimate contenders in the AFC.

Having thrown for just 98 yards and a touchdown against the Los Angeles Rams, Tagovailoa delivered in superb fashion against the Arizona Cardinals, inspiring the Dolphins to a thrilling 34-31 win after an absorbing duel with last year’s first-overall pick Kyler Murray.

Tagovailoa’s numbers were not eye-opening, he completed 71.4 percent of his passes for 248 yards and two touchdowns while adding 35 yards on seven rushes.

While his raw numbers will not blow anyone away, Tagovailoa’s showing was one that illustrated the higher ceiling the Dolphins offense has with the rookie under center, and the advanced metrics from Sunday’s victory are also indicative of that.

An EPA uptick

The strides made by the Dolphins offense in Week 9 are reflected by their performance in Expected Points Added, a metric that assesses every play and gauges whether it increased or decreased a team’s chances of scoring.

Between Weeks 1 and 6 with Ryan Fitzpatrick at quarterback, the Dolphins offense was ninth in the NFL with a dropback EPA of 0.212, according to data collected by The Athletic’s Ben Baldwin.

In Week 9 with Tagovailoa under center, the Dolphins’ dropback EPA was 0.445, third in the league behind the Green Bay Packers and the New York Jets.

Additionally, their dropback success rate, which measures the proportion of plays that resulted in positive EPA, was 56.8 percent. It was 56 percent between Weeks 1 and 6.

Of course, one game is an extremely small sample size, and Tagovailoa’s struggles in Week 8, which the Dolphins finished second last with a dropback EPA of minus 0.446 and 25th of 28 teams with a dropback success rate of 41.7 percent, should not be discounted.

Yet the increased comfort Tagovailoa displayed in his second start was extremely encouraging, with the former Alabama star displaying accuracy akin to that of his mentor Fitzpatrick.

Exceptional accuracy

The accuracy Tagovailoa demonstrated in Week 9 is outlined by his performance in Completion Percentage Above Expectation, an NFL NextGen Stats metric that measures the difference between a quarterback’s actual completion percentage and his expected completion percentage.

Tagovailoa was third among all quarterbacks in that metric in Week 9. His completion percentage of 71.4 was 14.7 percentage points higher than his expected completion percentage of 56.7. Only Murray (15.1) and Joe Flacco (15) fared better in that regard.

What Tagovailoa’s Completion Percentage Above Expectation tells us is that he consistently connected with his receivers on throws that had a low probability of being completed. Fitzpatrick, though, can still claim to have delivered the best showing by a Dolphins quarterback by that metric.

For his six games this campaign, Fitzpatrick has a Completion Percentage Above Expectation of 3.7,  but his high watermark came in the Week 3 against the Jacksonville Jaguars when that number was 21.7.

Tagovailoa displayed the same proficiency in capitalizing on the vulnerabilities of a defense in Week 9, though it is important to guard against reading too much into one game, with plenty of ups and downs surely coming as he continues to adapt to life as a pro starter.

However, in making the switch from Fitzpatrick to Tagovailoa, the Dolphins were betting on their top draft choice giving them a better chance to win right now as well as in the future. The evidence from a triumph over one of the best teams in the NFC indicates they were right to make that gamble.