The Tua Disrespect

[Dave Gray]

If he continues to get better, I was wrong about Tua.

I don't mean to harp, but "get better" at what, exactly?  The guy is playing perfect level football.  The guy could regress and still be the best player in the league.  The only thing I think is even worth mentioning is longevity.  He has to do it over the long term, but from what we have seen, the skill set is there.

[Pappy13]

I don't mean to harp, but "get better" at what, exactly?  The guy is playing perfect level football.  The guy could regress and still be the best player in the league.  The only thing I think is even worth mentioning is longevity.  He has to do it over the long term, but from what we have seen, the skill set is there.

What I mean is as long as he continues to play this way. It's not a given that Tua is going to continue to play the way he has the last 3 games. I still had some issues with his play earlier in the year. He had a bunch of bad passes in the first 3 weeks that could have easily been picked off but weren't and he had a number of questionable decisions about holding onto the ball too long as well. The last 3 games he's been terrific, no complaints whatsoever, but the entire year hasn't been that way and there's no telling what the final 7 are going to look like either. I need to see it for the rest of the year to be convinced this is his "normal" and not just a good streak. Basically it's about consistency now. Yes you are right that he's shown he can play at a level higher than even I expected, but he has to be consistent now. I don't expect him to be this good every week, but I expect bad weeks to be the exception so better than he was the first 2 years in the league, not better than what he's played in the last 3 weeks.

[Dave Gray]

^ I understand your point now.

That said, I don't agree with it.

The public's evaluation of Tua the first several weeks was bad.  Everyone though his deep ball was off and his throws looked weird and all this other stuff about almost getting INTs.  But I think that all of those were proven to be untrue.  No shade to you, as I believe you're coming at this earnestly, but I think there was a groupthink narrative that somehow he didn't look as good.  He did.  And he just continued to look good and it shut down the clown narrative.

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I saw Stephen A. Smith with a ridiculous take on Tua today, that he dumps 5 yard passes and lets Waddle and Hill take it to the house.  Not only has that happened 0 times, Tua has the highest average pass distance and I think the 2nd to lowest YAC in the league.  It's like the people setting the national narrative have never even seen him play.

[Pappy13]

The public's evaluation of Tua the first several weeks was bad.

That's your opinion and I understand that as well, but I don't think that's fair either. That's the "Tua lover" take on it in my opinion. I'm not a Tua hater, I'm just not a Tua lover and you don't have to be one or the other. There's you, "Tua Lover", there's Stephen A Smith "Tua Hater" and then there's me, "Tua realist", in my opinion. The "Tua lovers" have been convinced from day 1 and the "Tua haters" will never be convinced. Those are the 2 ends of the extreme, I'm more in the middle. I've loved him the last 3 weeks and really for most of the year, but he hasn't always been like this and I'm not convinced quite yet that this is his new "normal". He's playing much better this year and if it continues, he'll have changed my mind on him, but I still want to see it for a little while longer. Maybe play well in a playoff game? Note that I didn't say "win" as I don't believe Wins or Losses are a QB stat. Play well would be enough, even if they lost. That would definitely do it for me. Something along those lines. Do that and he'll have convinced me he's a franchise QB and the long wait for that is over. I've seen QB's play well for small stretches of games, but that's not their "normal" play. I don't think that's Tua, but I'm not convinced it's not yet either.

[Dave Gray]

We both said our points, so that's cool.

But I did want to say before we move on that I definitely don't consider myself a Tua lover.

I'm on record here being critical of his bad games and even said that I wouldn't pay to re-sign him.  With Tua, I'm just all about evaluating him for what he's actually doing.  And, not so much here, but with some of my friends and certainly with the national narrative, he kept having great games, especially statistically, and so many people would lead with "yeah...but".  And it's not that Tua is beyond criticism or that you can't see ways that he can limit potential errors.   But my whole thing is that other QBs weren't getting that same criticism for worse levels of play.  You don't see other QBs complete multiple bombs downfield where the TV announcer leads with how underthrown the ball is.

I think what is on my side at this point is that the numbers have been so good for so many weeks that his play can't have been an anomaly.  If he truly was underthrowing everyone and "almost throwing picks" that it would've caught up with him.  Here we are and he's essentially flawless for so many weeks, while Herbert and Josh Allen have ACTUALLY thrown 12 picks since Tua's last one.  And the media and fans-alike were slurping those two guys up.

It's just that Tua has been judged on a different scale this whole time and it's made me defensive of him.

[fyo]

^ If only Tua had "underthrown" Hill on that long bomb down the middle against the Browns that was defended, it would have been either complete or a huge PI. Hill was looking back for the ball, while the defender was going full tilt to cover him and never looked back (and wouldn't have been able to) - he just got a hand up in there. I'm certainly not saying that underthrowing an open receiver is good, but often you don't know if a receiver is going to pull away (and how much) at the time of your release, so designed underthrows can be effective, especially with shorter receivers that aren't necessarily going to be able to high-point it the same way as larger targets. For reference, Hill is a generous 5-10, while receivers like Cooper Kupp and Justin Jefferson are 6-1 and 6-2, respectively. Obviously, you don't make a *designed* underthrow against a deep safety who's just standing there looking for the ball and can make an aggressive play on it.

[Fau Teixeira]

Tua is a better QB than Justin Herbert.

Period.

[Dave Gray]

Tua is a better QB than Justin Herbert.

Period.

I'm not even prepared to say that.  And it's kinda missing the point.

It's just that Tua is criticized more for almost interceptions that could've lost the game than Herbert is for actual ones that did lose the games.

[Dolfanalyst]

Tua is currently tops in the league in DVOA -- and by an astronomical margin.  That measure incorporates what's expected on a play-by-play basis against the competition faced.

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/nfl/qb/2022

Wait till this team irons out the remaining wrinkle in the passing game and starts hitting the long bombs for TDs it has available to them.  Couple that with an improvement of the pass defense to merely the mediocre level and this is your Super Bowl winner.  Nobody can stop this.

[EDGECRUSHER]

Tua is currently tops in the league in DVOA -- and by an astronomical margin.  That measure incorporates what's expected on a play-by-play basis against the competition faced.

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/nfl/qb/2022

Wait till this team irons out the remaining wrinkle in the passing game and starts hitting the long bombs for TDs it has available to them.  Couple that with an improvement of the pass defense to merely the mediocre level and this is your Super Bowl winner.  Nobody can stop this.

How is Kader Kohou holding up? Seems like he is doing okay but looks are deceiving.

[Pappy13]

But I did want to say before we move on that I definitely don't consider myself a Tua lover.

Yeah, you're right that was not fair. What I should have said is the idea that any negative comments about Tua were unfair in my opinion was the "Tua Lover" take on it. Definitely his first 2 years that was true. You could argue that beginning this year anyone still not on the Tua bandwagon was a Tua Hater and I would typically agree with you, but there were many in his first 2 years calling anyone with a negative take on Tua a Tua Hater and that just wasn't true. He hadn't yet shown enough to convince anyone except Tua Lover's that he was the real deal. That changed this year and especially in his last 3 games.

[Pappy13]

Tua is a better QB than Justin Herbert.

Period.

I can't agree with this. Herbert is having the same issues this year that Tua had in previous years where he wasn't getting enough support. Herbert has already shown that he's one of the league's top QB's when given the support. I still maintain that was the major difference between the 2 QB's in college, Tua was on a team with a MUCH better supporting group and therefore his college stats were better. By contrast you could argue that Tua had better WR's in college than he did his first year in the pros. You saw an immediate jump in Herbert's play as soon as he got to the NFL and had NFL caliber WR's. Now that Tua has WR's at least as good as Herbert's are before the injuries this year if not better, you see the same type of performance from him that Herbert had earlier in his career. Of course this has a huge impact on your performance.

I can agree now that we have seen it from Tua that they are on equal footing performance wise, but I would still prefer to have Herbert for durability reasons alone.

I'd like to mention 1 more thing and that's the notion that Miami's coach and owner were actively working against Tua his first 2 years in the league. I don't believe that's true either, they wanted Tua to succeed, they just didn't know how to get the best from him. Their intentions were good I believe, the results were bad. That happens all the time. The current coach has changed all that and it's not simply because the coach believed in him, it's because he's putting him in the best position to succeed and I'm sure the owner is elated. The previous coach was a defensive minded coach, not surprising that he failed to get the best out of Tua especially given the talent upgrade on the offensive side of the ball this year.

[Dave Gray]

Tua wasn't nearly as good the last two years.  Obvious.  However, I think that there some kind of offensive line protection / confidence, paired with the way that McDaniel is running the RPO that is making Tua so dangerous this year.

He looks very fast in his reads.  All year.  He gets the snap, the play progresses and he makes the read.   He isn't hanging out with the ball waiting to find a guy.  Tua definitely had happy feet the last two years because the o-line play was just super inconsistent.  And the way the offense worked -- I have never played football, but to my untrained eye -- it just seems like less time is required for Tua to do what he needs to.

[Pappy13]

Tua wasn't nearly as good the last two years.  Obvious.  However, I think that there some kind of offensive line protection / confidence, paired with the way that McDaniel is running the RPO that is making Tua so dangerous this year.

He looks very fast in his reads.  All year.  He gets the snap, the play progresses and he makes the read.   He isn't hanging out with the ball waiting to find a guy.  Tua definitely had happy feet the last two years because the o-line play was just super inconsistent.  And the way the offense worked -- I have never played football, but to my untrained eye -- it just seems like less time is required for Tua to do what he needs to.

I agree with all of what you just said, but I don't think it's merely confidence or the scheme or anything, I think much of it is just that it took Tua time to figure it all out and he has this year. There's a big difference between college and the NFL. There's a lot of new stuff thrown at QB's in the pros. They have to digest it all and then be able to adjust to it. It takes some longer than others to adjust. I just feel like the game has slowed down for him this year and I've seen improvement in that area even from game 1 this year till the last game. Tua has never had a lack of confidence, his decision making has just gotten better/faster.

[fyo]

Tua wasn't nearly as good the last two years.  Obvious.  However, I think that there some kind of offensive line protection / confidence, paired with the way that McDaniel is running the RPO that is making Tua so dangerous this year.

He looks very fast in his reads.  All year.  He gets the snap, the play progresses and he makes the read.   He isn't hanging out with the ball waiting to find a guy.  Tua definitely had happy feet the last two years because the o-line play was just super inconsistent.  And the way the offense worked -- I have never played football, but to my untrained eye -- it just seems like less time is required for Tua to do what he needs to.

The Dolphins don't run nearly as much RPO this year. According to a pff article today, Tua has had 29 RPO plays. He has thrown the ball for 248 times, so even if most of those RPOs are passes, 90% (likely more) of all pass plays are NOT RPOs.