MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Tua Tagovailoa’s return from injured reserve might have been too late to save the Miami Dolphins’ season, but that doesn’t mean it was a wasted effort.
Beyond reminding the world — and most importantly, Dolphins owner Stephen Ross — how efficient Mike McDaniel’s offense can be with Miami’s QB1 on the field, Tagovailoa proved he didn’t lose a step during his month-long absence.
Miami Dolphins’ Tua Tagovailoa Is Definitely Back
In fact, Tagovailoa’s performance in Sunday’s 28-27 loss to the Arizona Cardinals was the best by a Dolphins quarterback since at least the start of the 2019 season.
That’s according to QB+, PFN’s new proprietary metric that measures quarterback efficiency.
Tagovailoa scored a 66.7 (out of 100), which graded out to a B. While that might not seem all that impressive, it was better than he or any other Dolphins QB had performed in a losing effort the last six seasons.
Here are our QB Rankings for Week 8 using our QB+ Metric 🏈
Our QB+ metric looks at several statistics, including net yards per attempt (nYPA), third-down conversion rate, passing under pressure, and passing from a clean pocket. Additionally, we have quantified performances in… pic.twitter.com/Ekw9A8R8ns
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“I thought it’s kind of what I expected,” McDaniel said of Tua postgame. “He did a real good job on third down, but collectively, I think the bigger thing was that we had a little bit more of our brand of football that we felt that is probably a silver lining if we weren’t sitting at 2-5.”
Tagovailoa has had more impressive statistical performances in a loss than he did Sunday against the Cardinals, when Tua completed 28 of 38 passes for 234 yards and one touchdown.
But the plays he did make were highly impactful, and the biggest reason why the Dolphins converted a spectacular 11 of 15 third downs.
QB+ looks at several statistics, including net yards per attempt (nYPA), third-down conversion rate, passing under pressure, and passing from a clean pocket. Additionally, we have quantified performances in clutch situations using statistics from different key scenarios within a game.
By no means is QB+ the perfect metric, and we will continue to develop it throughout the season and beyond. However, when we analyzed it against the past five years, the results were extremely indicative of what we saw on the field while providing enough nuance away from traditional statistics for measuring quarterback play.
“I would say I felt like myself,” Tagovailoa said postgame. “I’ve been preparing for five weeks as if I were to play while I was on IR, so that’s what it was. So it felt normal coming out there.”
If this is the new normal for the Dolphins’ offense, perhaps his season isn’t lost yet.