It hasn’t been a banner year for Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. He’s regressed in pretty much every major category this season, except for one: health. 

Tua did pop up on the injury report at one point with a thumb injury and hip issue, but he hasn’t missed a game this year. If that trend continues, it would be just the second time in his career that he started in every game for the Dolphins. 

However, Tua staying healthy has its own drawbacks. Because of how Tua got hurt last season — diving headfirst into a defender instead of sliding — there’s been a great emphasis on him getting down early. 

That emphasis on sliding came back to bite the Dolphins against the New Orleans Saints last weekend. Miami had third and 4 from the Saints’ 45, and Tua stepped through the pocket to try and pick up a first down. 

Because he slid feet first, the officials marked the ball where his slide started, not where his momentum was taking him. That put him a yard short, and the Dolphins got stuffed on the next play. 

“Those are quick decisions that you have to make, so I’ve had a conversation with [head coach Mike McDaniel],” Tua told reporters Wednesday. “We’ve talked about it, and I’ve got to make the right decision for the team and to keep us on the field. I gotta be better there.” 

Ultimately, it’s easy to sit back and say Tua should have dived headfirst for the first down. But it’s also hard to blame Tua, given the number of concussions he’s suffered and how severe some of them are — diving headfirst just isn’t a natural thing to do. 

Tua Needs to Find Balance 

In an ideal world, Tua could find a pretty good balance between being aggressive in putting himself in harm’s way and protecting himself from unnecessary hits. 

Football is hardly played in “ideal” conditions, though. The game moves fast, and there are a lot of decisions made within a second or two. Because things on the field tend to be messier than on the chalkboard, it’s hard to come up with a perfect plan for Tua. 

That’s something Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel echoed Wednesday. 

“For scrambling in general, there’s a relative risk-reward, like throwing a contested ball. The situation as the quarterback of the team has the ball in his hands, and you’re trying to win the game,” McDaniel said. “How important is that yard? And that is an imperfect thing that’s very difficult to do, but you’re trying to assess that. You take your chances when the chances are necessary to take – my starting point in football with the Denver Broncos and John Elway did the helicopter, and everyone was wowed because they’d never seen that because it was in the Super Bowl.

“If there’s a critical third down, you have to adjust relative to the risk. He was trying to dive forward, and we’ve got to articulate and assess and work on how to execute that in those tight pockets where you’re in that fringe territory, and it’s a big deal if you get the yard or not.”

Based on McDaniel’s comments, it seems like Tua meant to dive headfirst and got crossed up, resulting in what we saw against New Orleans. 

Nobody expects Tua to do a helicopter like John Elway in the Super Bowl, but plays like the one on Sunday do matter. Not picking up that first down allowed the Saints to stay in a game that should have been over. Of course, Miami also failed on fourth and inches, so it’s not even close to all Tua’s fault. 

Still, as much as Tua and McDaniel will continue to try to find a good balance, the harsh truth is that this is one of the limitations Tua places on an offense. 

He’s not mobile, and his injury history is so robust that every time he gets hit, you have to hold your breath a bit. You just have to hope it doesn’t bite the Dolphins at the wrong time.

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