Tua Tagovailoa got the money of a franchise quarterback. He got the contract of an elite quarterback. He got his future married to the Miami Dolphins for the next four years, through good times and bad times, sickness and in Buffalo.
Now is it fair to expect him to become that elite, franchise guy?
There’s ample room to be happy for Tagovailoa that his life’s work and career’s sweat has paid off with a four-year, $212 million contract extension and at the same time to say he’s being paid for the next step he still has to take.
This isn’t him, alone. The cart is before the horse for much of sports, starting with the NFL, starting with the quarterback position. Part of that is the NFL is brimming with money and the players are getting their healthy chunks, just as they should be.
Look around the headlines. Do you understand how the NBA’s new 11-year, $76 billion television deal will change that league’s dollars? A $100-million-a-year player will become part of every team — even the ones that don’t win.
So, there really are two sports world these days. There’s the one the players work in where the goal is to get to the second, succulent contract. Dolphin coach Mike McDaniel made his bones in the NFL by telling players just that: “I”ll help you get your next contract.” He did in many cases, too.
Then there’s the outside world, the one where it’s easier to understand how several Florida Panthers got career contracts after reaching the Stanley Cup Final and then winning the Cup in the past two seasons.
Some players like Gustav Forsling and Sam Reinhart got their good money from the Panthers. Others like Brandon Montour and Ryan Lomberg were paid by other teams. But the bottom-line is they got paid for winning.
That’s the natural order as most people understand sports, isn’t it?
The Dolphins haven’t won anything. Everyone is getting paid. It was expected in some form considering the team spent top-end money for a couple of seasons to make a team (Tyreek Hill, Bradley Chubb, Jalen Ramsey, Terron Armstead … ). The bill also has come due for the high draft picks from their tanking seasons.
They lost some core players like Christian Wilkins and Robert Hunt in this exchange. They lost several middle-class contributors (Andrew Van Ginkel, DeShon Elliott, Brandon Jones …)
They kept an expensive core group, though. Tagovailoa, Hill and Jaylen Waddle represent the first time three NFL playmakers with guaranteed contracts of over $70 million are in an offense.
Some of that’s the times. Some is this team’s recent philosophy. The Dolphins Way isn’t some organizational standard set by the owner or front office considering they’ve been here through several regimes of conflicting strategies.
The Dolphins Way was carved the past two seasons by McDaniel. It’s not just based on team speed but personal happiness. A happy player is a better player, his idea goes. That’s different than the hungry-player-is-a-better player motif of another sports generation.
When old-school defensive coordinator Vic Fangio left after one season, the Dolphins immediately embraced Ramsey and let it be known his defensive role would be expanded in a manner Ramsey wanted and Fangio didn’t. A player invested in his role is a better player, the Dolphins Way says.
This is the way the NFL is bending these days. Old, crusty, six-time-Super-Bowl-winning New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick can’t find a job and young, friendly, first-time coach Jerod Mayo is now considered the Patriots’ winning future.
In some manner this contractual dust-up with Tagovailoa over the offseason went against the Dolphins Up-With-Players philosophy. But the question was never if he’d get paid. It was how much. And what it meant to the rest of the roster.
Now that he’s been paid the question can revert to the larger issues all along: Is Tua an elite quarterback, a franchise-changing talent? Can this team win a playoff game or (go crazy) more next January? Can it have sustained winning if his contract means the roster has to take a step back?
It’s always easy to nod along with players getting paid after they won. The Dolphins are doing it the other way. They’ve paid, pampered, and given some good loving to players such that Tagovailoa’s deal was the talk around this team for months simply because he hadn’t been paid.
Now the deal’s done it’s time to talk about winning, only winning. That’s something that unlike writing big contracts the Dolphins haven’t done enough of lately.
