MIAMI — Happy birthday, Tua Tagovailoa, who turned 25 on Thursday. The perfect gift from his team might have been the announcement the fifth-year option on his contract was being picked up. Would have been a present worth $23.2 million. Guaranteed.
The gift was not forthcoming.
He might still get it. Might not, too.
The Miami Dolphins have a quandary on the future of the young quarterback. They want to show him love, and faith. But with that comes great risk. And the clock ticks ever louder toward a decision deadline of May 1.
Tagovailoa’s history concussions is an obvious, spoken reason for the delay.
The not-spoken reason may be the X-factor: The possible availability of Lamar Jackson.
It’s been fun this week hearing Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel and general manager Chris Grier tip-toe around the matter of Tua and the fifth-year option. Both are attending the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, despite the fact Miami does not have a first-round pick in the upcoming draft, its own brand of torture.
“Yeah, I think, with us, we’re still having all those conversations because there’s a lot of factors that go into that,” said Grier of the fifth-year option.
Said McDaniel: “We have a congruence of interest by the Dolphins and the player that both parties really want him to play at a really high level for Miami The best way to engineer that or help manifest that — those are the kind of things we’re weighing with the various options.”
Distilled to the essence ... the Dolphins have no idea what to do with Tagovailoa. How to proceed.
And I don’t blame them. There is no right answer. At least, there is no safe answer.
— Option 1: Pick up his option by the deadline. But then you owe him $23.2 million in 2024, even if his ‘23 season is some combination of concussion-marred and disappointing.
— Option 2: Don’t pick up his option. But then if he has a healthy, great season in 2023, the price to re-sign him skyrockets on the free-agent market in ‘24.
— Option 3: Show the ultimate faith. Extend him with a long-term contract this offseason. And hope the very-real concussion issues are magically and forever in the past.
“All the options [are being considered],” Grier said..
Durability concerns? “I can’t lie and say no,” said the GM. But “it’s not something that’s going to make us afraid to do something long-term with him.”
But should it? Tagovailoa is taking classes in jiu-jitsu, a self-defense martial art, to help him earn to fall better and help avoid future concussions. Sounds smart. Also, desperate.
“The ground is not his friend,” as McDaniel put it, “so we’re trying to avoid his opponent.”
Of course there is a gigantic X-factor, the Option 4 in Miami’s decision on Tagovailoa.
It is Lamar Jackson’s looming possible availability.
“I’m not in the business of tampering,” McDaniel said this week.
He said that of reports Bills safety Jordan Poyer wants to play in Miami.
Imagine the additional 10-foot poles he’d be borrowing to not touch the Jackson speculation publicly?
It is real, though.
Jackson, the superstar dual-threat QB, 26, and Baltimore are at a contractual impasse. His demands seem to be him wanting out, and there are indications he sees the Fins as a landing spot.
NBC’s Mike Florio reported a likelihood the Ravens might apply a non-exclusive franchise tag to Jackson if they fail to sign him long-term. That would allow other teams to negotiate with Jackson and sign him to an offer sheet. If the Ravens declined to match it, they would be owed two first-round draft picks. (In Miami’s case that would be in 2024 and ‘25).
It seems plain to me the Dolphins are delaying their Tagovailoa decision as close to the May 1 deadline as possible waiting for movement in the Jackson/Baltimore stalemate. And that’s smart. As I wrote recently, you can be pro-Tua, as I have been and still am, and still believe Jackson is a generational talent and franchise-changer you must pursue.
He would command a financial windfall to equal or surpass the highest-paid QBs, with most or all of it guaranteed. Not to mention those two first-round picks. I’d still do it, as I recently wrote. Others agree.
“I’m watching Get Up [on ESPN] and the question is whether the Dolphins should try to acquire Lamar Jackson,” Bomani Jones tweeted. “Whew they need to get on that right now. RIGHT NOW.”
The decisions swirling before the Dolphins are pricey and scary and scintillating and gargantuan and they will only have one chance to get it just right.
Whether it’s going all-in on Jackson should he become available, or rolling dice on how to proceed with Tagovailoa, the coming weeks will present quarterback choices that will do no less than steer the future of the Miami Dolphins.
