The Dolphins’ decision to hire Mike McDaniel this offseason has widely been met with praise. After all, McDaniel was a key architect behind the 49ers’ offensive success last season that saw them rank inside the top five in both passing and rushing DVOA. There are obviously plenty of reasons to be excited, but one that gets mentioned more than anything else is the fit with third-year quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.
On the surface this logic makes sense. McDaniel helmed an offense that went to the NFC Championship game with Jimmy Garoppolo as his quarterback. Much like Tagovailoa, Garoppolo has a reputation as an accurate, timing-based thrower with limited arm strength. The argument goes that if McDaniel can get the best out of Garoppolo, he can do the same with a similar player like Tua. But are the two so similar? And does Tua fit Mike McDaniel’s scheme? Let’s dive into the detail.
Commonalities between Tua and Jimmy
When you look at Tua and Jimmy Garoppolo’s performances in 2021 there are certainly some areas of similarity. The following charts from PFF’s QB Annual show that there was some correlation in their playstyles. Both are amongst the fastest quarterbacks in NFL when it comes to getting the ball out. They were actually tied with the third fastest time to throw in 2021, both averaging 2.53 seconds. They also both prioritise the short passing game. Garoppolo ranked 28th with an ADOT of 7.8 yards, whilst Tua was 36th at 7.4.
There are also some parallels when it comes to playing under pressure. Both players are comfortable and efficient when passing from clean pockets. In 2021 Garoppolo ranked seventh in PFF passing grade from a clean pocket. Tua finished a respectable 14th. For both players, issues tend to arrive when they face pressure. They have a habit of panicking and making poor decisions, with Tua having the second most interceptions of any pressured quarterback. Garoppolo wasn’t far behind, ranking sixth. Garoppolo actually had the lowest PFF passing grade under pressure in 2021, with Tua not much better in 34th.
Another similarity that is equally concerning is their balance of big-time throws and turnover-worthy plays. Neither Tua or Garoppolo excel as downfield throwers and had some of the lowest big-time throw rates in the NFL. Despite a conservative playstyle, they also happened to be responsible for a bunch of turnover-worthy throws.
The differences
Whilst there are clearly some parallels between Tua and Garoppolo’s game, there are also some big differences. These are really the important areas of focus. Many expect Mike McDaniel to seamlessly translate San Francisco’s offensive success to Miami, when in reality this version of the offense is likely to look very different.
Passing over the middle of the field
Perhaps the most fundamental difference is where the two quarterbacks are comfortable targeting. In San Francisco, McDaniel’s offense was built around passes between the numbers that maximised YAC opportunities for receivers. It therefore comes as no surprise that Garoppolo’s most targeted routes were slants, which accounted for 14% of his throws. His next most popular throw was the dig route, at 13%.
This is an essential part of the Shanahan scheme, which looks to create high-low opportunities for their quarterbacks. The ability to hit the dig route is key to making these offenses tick. Garoppolo might be a little limited, but he was actually very good at operating these concepts. He posted a passer rating of 100.2 on dig routes in 2021. For context, that was a higher mark than players like Matthew Stafford.
This stands in sharp contrast to Tua. Miami have tailored their offense to suit their quarterback, namely with the incorporation of a tonne of RPOs. The exact nature of the RPO varies, but they tend to target a very specific area of the field, that being outside the numbers on the left hand side of the field. Tua actually threw passes to this area of the field at the fifth highest rate last season. In contrast, Garoppolo ranked 18th.
He was also noticeably unwilling or unable to target the middle of the field. His heat maps show that the Dolphins ran plenty of concepts between the hashes, but their quarterback was unwilling to target them. The difference is clear again when you look at how Tua performed on dig routes. He not only threw them at a much lower rate (5% against Garoppolo’s 13%) but was completely ineffective at executing them. Tua had a passer rating of 46.7 on such throws. Only Derek Carr and Justin Fields performed worse.
Working secondary reads
This is a similar issue to that of passing focus. Whilst Jimmy Garoppolo might get flak for his performance in 2021, he was at least a competent starter who can generally execute NFL concepts. An essential part of that is the ability to progress through your reads. 65% of Garoppolo’s passes went to his first read, which is slightly below the NFL average of 67%.
When he got to his secondary read the results were mixed, but he wasn’t exactly a disaster. His 44.1% accurate throw rate was slightly below the NFL average of 51.8% and he also threw a slightly higher rate of uncatchable passes. When you look at the production, he averaged 0.00 EPA per play on second reads. Once again, this was slightly below the NFL average of 0.02.
Tua’s numbers look wildly different. A massive 75% of his throws went to his first read. For context, only Tyler Huntley threw to his first read at a higher rate last season. Whilst he was incredibly efficient on these throws (he more than doubled the NFL average EPA per play), problems arose when his receiver wasn’t open.
On throws to his second read Tua had the lowest accuracy rate of any quarterback in the NFL, sitting way down at 31.6%. He also had the second highest rate of uncatchable passes, behind only Trevor Lawrence. Tua also ranked all the way down at 27th in EPA per play on these throws.
| Jimmy Garoppolo | Tua Tagovailoa | NFL Average | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Second read throw % | 13% | 11% | 11% |
| Accuracy % | 44.1% | 36.1% | 51.9% |
| Uncatchable % | 28.8% | 36.1% | 25.2% |
| ADOT | 8.9 | 7.4 | 11 |
| EPA per play | 0.00 | -0.14 | 0.02 |
Playing in shotgun
Last but not least is the differences in how the offenses operate in terms of under center and shotgun. This is much more of a schematic issue than a talent one, but it is nonetheless important. With Tua at quarterback, Miami’s offense has lived in shotgun formations. In 2021 they ran them at the fourth highest rate in the NFL, behind Baltimore, Arizona, and Philadelphia. All of those offenses operate this way because of the mobility of their quarterback. In Miami it is slightly different.
Tua ran a shotgun-heavy offense in college and clearly feels most comfortable doing so in the NFL. It is also essential in allowing him to operate the quick-hitting RPOs that formed the bedrock of Miami’s offense. These plays don’t work from under center as they require the quarterback to quickly hitch and throw once he has read the conflict defender or assessed the number advantage.
In contrast, San Francisco operated in shotgun on just 60.2% of their snaps under Mike McDaniel. This figure put them 22nd in the NFL. A big reason for this is the type of rushing attack they operated and the ability to then utilise play action off the back of this. If McDaniel is to bring over that success to Miami, you would expect to see more of the traditional under center formations. This is not something that Tua has ever had to deal with in large quantities, and whether he can function to a high level in that kind of offense remains something of an unknown.
So what should we expect in 2022?
All of this data shows that contrary to popular opinion, Tua Tagovailoa is not ideally suited to the scheme that Mike McDaniel ran in San Francisco. Whilst there are some superficial similarities between his and Jimmy Garoppolo’s playing styles, there are some major differences too. There are therefore two potential outcomes for 2022.
The first is that Mike McDaniel tries to install the scheme that had so much success in San Francisco and hope that Tua can adjust. With all of the evidence around how Tua plays quarterback, this feels like a plan doomed to failure. The second and more likely option is that we see a very different offense from McDaniel and the Dolphins in 2022. McDaniel can mould the scheme around his new quarterback. After all, other descendants from the so-called Shanahan coaching tree have done just that.
Sean McVay has adopted an 11 personnel and empty formation-heavy approach with Matthew Stafford in L.A. Matt LaFleur has made the most of spread formations and quick fire RPOs. Only time will tell what wrinkles McDaniel will add to the scheme that continues to dominate the NFL landscape. The one thing we should all expect is that it won’t look like the offense he ran in San Francisco.
