Tua Gets Tossed
Tua Turndaballova has become TuaDaBenchWarma. No. You know what? I will not apologize for that. You’re gonna have to live with it.
In a move that surprised me but probably shouldn’t have, Tua has been benched. The Dolphins have elected to spend the remains of their season starting 7th-round rookie QB/Kraven the Hunter Quinn Ewers. The Dolphins season is over. Mike McDaniel was supposedly given the green light when the GM was fired, so it’s possible his job is not actually in danger and now he’s shutting Tua down in order to see what the rookie has. Probably to judge just how seriously they need to take the position into account this offseason.
Tua’s not going anywhere (probably). His cap hit is staggering. The only thing the Dolphins can do is take a huge punishment or see if any team is willing to trade for him. It’s a sad, unceremonious end to a roller coaster career. But Tua just…isn’t good. Whatever potential is there is buried under years of brain trauma and failure. He’s only good in garbage time once the pressure is off. He can’t win in cold weather. He’s just…not good.
That isn’t to say it’s over. He might still be salvageable. Trevor Lawrence was being regarded as a letdown until the latter half of this season when he has really turned it on. Tua is probably toast in Miami but if he does leave, he might have places where he can succeed. He has the ability. The Steelers? He’s functional enough that he could be a decent fit there. The Vikings? Possibly, though he’d probably have to stay a backup since McCarthy is playing *passable* football now. The Raiders? Well, it’s at least warm weather. The Jets? Well, death comes for us all. Maybe the Cardinals can trade Tua for Kyler straight up.
Comedy option: make him Herbert’s backup
Honestly, I always get a little leery of the “make a joke based on a guys name” thing, especially when its a non-standard-white-person name.
I get the intent of it, but especially with Tua its always felt less of a jab at his too-high interception rate (which is absolutely a legitimate line of criticism) and more mocking his name for being hard to say…
…or, at least, hard to say for an average white person. And yeah, I struggle to say Tagovailoa, and I absolutely did copy-paste that from Wikipedia. I guess I just feel weird about making it the core of a joke.
Not criticizing anyone for making the jokes or anything, just blabbering on about some weirdness, I guess.
…as for the player? Figure he’s going to get tossed aside once it makes sense for the salary cap, bounce around as a backup for a year or two, and then suddenly be thrust into the core of a good team and go on a deep playoff run that makes everyone wonder if the Dolphins really did fail him. You know, the Sam Darnold/Daniel Jones pathway to late-career success.
Or he retires. And given the number of concussions he’s suffered over his career, I really hope he just retires and tries to retain what mental health he still has left.