Tua Tagovailoa, Dolphins had plenty of doubters. They're the NFL's best story

By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist

The first matchup that Tua Tagovailoa took on this season happened before the real games even began — and the opponent was pretty darn intimidating.

It was, well, the entire internet.

It took place when Tagovailoa found himself at the center of the silliest storyline of the National Football League’s silliest time of year: the first session of organized team activities back in May, the portion of the football calendar that never fails to generate red-hot takes based on minuscule amounts of information.

That is how it came to be that a single substandard throw, tossed to incoming Miami Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill and posted by the Dolphins’ social media team, sparked the raising of a series of contrived red flags, questioning everything from Tagovailoa’s arm strength to his ability to maximize Hill’s talents and his very suitability for the Miami starting job.

As we stand now, of course, those claims look as flimsy as the evidence they were then based on, but it is worth rewinding a little to reflect on how Tagovailoa, still just 24, responded to the fake furor at the time.

“We come out to practice,” Tagovailoa told reporters. “Everyone else — Twitter warriors, keyboard warriors, whatever you want to call them, they’re not out here practicing with us, working hard.

“I don’t know if you guys recorded that last one to Tyreek. I don’t know about you, but that looked like money.”

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Perhaps some months earlier, things would have been different. Perhaps he’d have ignored it, kept his head low and hoped the fuss would go away. We’ll never know, but it is hard not to draw a point of connection between Tagovailoa’s spectacular start to the current season and the noticeably emboldened level of positivity that he has about him under the stewardship of new head coach Mike McDaniel.

And here we are: three games, three wins. For Tagovailoa, eight touchdowns to two interceptions, a soaring passer rating, a couple of white-knuckle thrillers successfully navigated and a script overwhelmingly flipped from the team’s tale of disappointment dating back several years.

Going into Thursday night’s clash with the Cincinnati Bengals, Miami has a sense of light-heeled energy about it, a kind of don’t-look-back fearlessness being actively promoted by McDaniel.

Tagovailoa was upgraded to “limited” in practice on Tuesday after battling back and ankle soreness, but is expected to play, bouncing off last weekend’s impressive triumph over the Super Bowl favorite Buffalo Bills in which Miami survived the hilarious snafu already known into eternity as the Butt Punt.

“I’m sure it’s evident to everybody the way that Mike McDaniel has come in and embraced Tua and made sure that he knows that he’s the guy,” former Miami QB Ryan Fitzpatrick told reporters. “That he’s loved and that they’re on the same team, and trying to have success together. I think that’s been really helpful for his mentality.”

The result is a streak of confidence that hasn’t been seen for a long time in South Florida, where the ghosts of Dan Marino and Bob Griese and Don Shula are so distant that it sometimes feels like all that good stuff happened to a different franchise.

Stirring starts to a season on this level are unfamiliar to newer fans. Heady days are here, sparked by an opening thumping of the New England Patriots and continued by a furious comeback from three touchdowns back against the Baltimore Ravens. Knocking off the Bills was enough for some publications (FOX Sports among them) to install the Dolphins at No. 1 on their power rankings.

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Through his early career, Tagovailoa’s mentality has been tested. Former head coach Brian Flores supported him, but was also loath to let a second-year player too far off the leash last season. At a franchise level, it is no secret that the Dolphins’ key decision-makers would have liked to have had Tom Brady or Deshaun Watson under center if they could’ve made it happen.

But this is working out very well, with Tagovailoa’s play spawning talk of how the Dolphins could position themselves among the favorites in the AFC. Or even, like their Thursday opponent Cincinnati last season, make a surprisingly deep playoff run.

Tua Time, at last, could truly be here. The rest of the league is taking notice.

“He’s playing well and it is exciting to see,” Bengals QB Joe Burrow said. “All the QBs in our draft class have been playing well. The more talent the better.”

Now comes a steeper challenge for Tagovailoa. Everyone has seen what he is capable of in a system designed to maximize his productivity, so next is the assumed responsibility of replicating that level of performance on a weekly basis.

It is probably unrealistic to expect that all the growing pains have been ironed out for the 2020 No. 5 pick, but he finally has momentum behind him now. Most importantly, he has shown himself increasingly willing to meet obstacles head-on, whatever they are.

Be it the keyboard combatants, the general difficulty of being a learning QB or those phony red flags of early summer. Perhaps they never need to be waved after all.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider newsletter. Follow him on Twitter @MRogersFOX and subscribe to the daily newsletter.