His head coach called him “svelte.” He looks downright skinny.
Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa supposedly loss 10-15 pounds this offseason. Perhaps that’s accurate — in one of his legs.
Via Jenna Lemoncelli of the New York Post, Tagovailoa showed up for an event on Friday looking noticeably thinner.
Click the link and scroll through the photos. Yes, the length of the hair on his hair and lack of hair on his face make him look different. But he looks very, very thin.
Some on social media wondered if it was even him.
He’s officially listed as six-one, 227 pounds. Those photos do not suggest 227 pounds. He might be flirting with dipping under 200 pounds.
There’s a very real balance to strike when it comes to quarterback size. The natural body armor protects a player against the kind of hits he’ll take from much larger defensive players. And while lack of size contributes to speed and elusiveness, no player can run away from every possible hit. And when those hits happen, the extra weight protects the parts of the body that could get injured.
Football is Newtonian physics gone haywire. Bodies flying and colliding and reacting to the forces applied to them. Remember the Week 4 game in 2022? Tua was whipsawed to the ground by a Bengals defender, hard enough that his head snapped back and struck the turf, resulting in a concussion that had Tua taken from the field on a stretcher and transported straight to a local hospital.
Last year, when he was larger than the year before, he made it through 17 regular-season games and a playoff game. This year, there will be an enhanced risk given his reduced mass.
The risk extends beyond the field. Will the Dolphins feel comfortable giving him the kind of contract he’s seeking? He might have to put some of that armor back on his body before training camp opens to make owner Stephen Ross feel comfortable with giving the green light to a long-term deal that approaches market level.
The Dolphins have paid receiver Jaylen Waddle. They inevitably will pay receiver Tyreek Hill, again. Presumably, quarterback Tua Tagovailoa will get a second contract, too.
Or will he?
Tua is due to make $23.1 million in the option year of his rookie first-round deal. If player and team were on the same page about the value of his next contract, the contract would already be done. So what does Tua want? What is the team willing to pay?
Bottom line? At some point before Week 1 of the regular season, the Dolphins will make their best offer. Tua will take it, or he won’t.
The most important person in this entire exercise is team owner Stephen Ross. Is he willing to give Tua $50 million or more per year when the jury remains out on how far he can take the team? Or will Ross trust a coach who has a reputation for designing and implementing high-end offense to do as well or better with someone else?
Dak Prescott might be available next year. Kirk Cousins could be available, at only $27.5 million in 2025 salary. Deshaun Watson, depending on how this season goes in Cleveland, could be available. What could other quarterbacks do with a revolving door of potent running backs and a receiving corps led by Hill and Waddle?
Let’s play out how it could go. The Dolphins have the franchise tag available for 2025. If he takes the team beyond the first round of the playoffs, they could use that to hold him in place while they try to work out a long-term deal. Or, regardless of how 2024 goes, they could let him hit the open market and find out what else is, or isn’t, out there.
When the Lions recently gave Jared Goff a deal with $53 million per year in new money, many asked who were the Lions bidding against? Really, who would have given that kind of contract to Goff? Who would give $50 million or more per year to Tua, if he was available to anyone and everyone?
However it goes, it’s fair to ask whether the Dolphins could go as far or farther with another quarterback who would cost significantly less than Tua wants. It’s also fair to wonder whether Ross will draw a line in the sand that falls short of what Tua will take.
In early 2006, quarterback Drew Brees had a surgically-repaired shoulder that kept the Dolphins from offering him a contract. It didn’t stop the Saints.
Eighteen years later, Brees has been elected to the Saints’ Hall of Fame.
His arrival, along with coach Sean Payton, laid the foundation for a rebirth of the city in the aftermath of a hurricane that devastated the region. From the first home game of the regular-season, a raucous Week 3 Monday night victory over the Falcons, it was clear that things had changed for the long-suffering franchise.
Three years later, the Saints won a Super Bowl.
Although they never got back to the Super Bowl, the Saints contended more often than not with Payton and Brees. And Brees put together the kind of career that will eventually get him to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, on the first try.
Brees entered the NFL in 2001 as the first pick in round two by the Chargers, after they traded the first overall selection (and the rights to Michael Vick) to the Falcons. Brees eventually became the starter, but the Chargers decided to supplant him with Philip Rivers.
Brees suffered the shoulder injury during his last game with the Chargers. That ultimately scared away the Dolphins and created an opening for the Saints.
So it was damaged quarterback and damaged city that repaired themselves together, leading a team that had only postseason win in its history before his arrival to the kind of heights many thought it would ever achieve.
When the Dolphins traded for receiver Tyreek Hill two years ago, he got a four-year, $120 million extension that was, and is, a three-year, $75 million deal. As noted earlier today, the contract hasn’t aged well.
As it turns out, Hill has been aware of that. And there has been an effort to rectify it.
Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the effort to address Hill’s contract began after the 2023 season ended. That’s when Hill had 1,799 receiving yards, despite a late-season ankle injury that derailed what seemed to be a likely 2,000-yard campaign.
The effort intensified after Eagles receiver A.J. Brown got his latest new contract. Brown got his prior contract when Hill got his current one, and Brown had three years left on his contract. Like Hill does.
Hill, as a practical matter, has two years left. That final year, at $45 million in cash, surely won’t be paid.
The time to get a new deal is now. He turned 30 on March 1. The market has gone up. The cap has gone up.
It’s entirely possible (if not probable . . . if not likely) that Vikings receiver Justin Jefferson will have a new contract as soon as next week. If that happens, it will re-set the market — and it will give Hill a new target.
Whether he’ll match or beat Jefferson’s deal remains to be seen. Regardless, expect him to try.
The Dolphins and receiver Jaylen Waddle have reached agreement on a three-year extension that puts him in the top-five among all receivers. It technically puts him, when trimming the fat from receiver contracts, in the top two.
We’ll explain later. For now, the details on the Waddle deal. Per a source with knowledge of the terms:
1. Signing bonus: $18.873 million.
2. 2024 base salary: $1.055 million, fully guaranteed.
3. 2025 base salary: $16.050 million, fully guaranteed.
4. 2025 workout bonus: $100,000.
5. 2026 base salary: $16.631 million, guaranteed for injury at signing and fully guaranteed in March 2025.
6. 2026 workout bonus: $100,000.
7. 2026 per-game roster bonus: $510,000 total.
8. 2027 base salary: $23.39 million, guaranteed for injury at signing. Of that amount, $15.2 million becomes fully guaranteed in March 2026. The remainder becomes fully guaranteed in March 2027.
9. 2027 workout bonus: $100,000.
10. 2027 per-game roster bonus: $510,000 total.
11. 2028 offseason roster bonus: $1 million.
12. 2028 base salary: $25.764 million.
13. 2028 workout bonus: $100,000.
14. 2028 per-game roster bonus: $510,000 total.
With Waddle due to make $19.94 million over the two remaining years of his deal, the total package is five years, with a total value from signing of $20.9 million. The new-money average is $28.25 million.
Technically, the $28.25 million in new-money average puts him behind A.J. Brown ($32 million), Amon-Ra St. Brown ($30.0025 million), and Tyreek Hill ($30 million). Removing the flnal-year fluff from St. Brown and Hill, Waddle comes in second — since St. Brown’s deal is worth $28 million and Hill’s is worth $25 million.
It won’t last long, not with Justin Jefferson likely getting a new deal before training camp (if not sooner), with Ja’Marr Chase up after that, and with Tyreek Hill likely to get an adjustment of his own.
The Dolphins have locked up Jaylen Waddle with a long-term deal.
Waddle has agreed to a three-year contract extension that will make him one of the league’s highest-paid receivers and keep him tied to the organization through 2028, according to multiple reports.
The initial numbers indicate Waddle’s deal is worth $84.75 million with $76 million guaranteed.
Selected at No. 6 overall in 2021, Waddle was already under contract through 2025 after the Dolphins exercised his fifth-year option this spring.
Waddle caught 104 passes for 1,015 yards with six touchdowns as a rookie. But with head coach Mike McDaniel’s arrival in 2022, he nearly doubled his yards per reception, catching 75 passes for 1,356 yards with eight TDs. That season, he led the league with 18.1 yards per catch.
In 2023, Waddle had his third consecutive 1,000-yard season to begin his career with 72 catches for 1,014 yards and four touchdowns.
Two years ago, Tyreek Hill became the highest-paid receiver in football, with a contract carrying a new-money average of $30 million per year.
There are now two problems with the contract, one of which was there from the moment the contract was signed. First, the $30 million is and always was fake, phony, fugazi. To get to $30 million per year, the final year’s compensation package was pumped up to a ridiculously unrealistic $45 million.
Take that away from the four-year, $120 million extension, and Hill got a three-year, $75 million extension. The real, true, actual new-money average isn’t $30 million. It’s $25 million.
Second, recent deals compare very favorably to Hill’s contract. This offseason, his fake $30 million contract has been matched and beaten — without fake final years — by Amon-Ra St. Brown and A.J. Brown. More recently, Texans receiver Nico Collins (represented by Drew Rosenhaus, the same agent who represents Hill) got a three-year extension with a real new-money average of $24.25 million.
Could the Texans and Collins have added a phony fourth year with a $47.25 million compensation package to drive the average to $30 million per year? Yep. And that would have been exactly what the Dolphins and Hill did.
Throw in the fact that Hill makes only $19.765 million in cash this year, and he could be getting antsy. Look at what he said earlier this month about finishing his career in Miami: “I love the team I play on, love the guys in the locker room, love the head coach, love the G.M. So that means sign me. I love all you guys so much, I want to stay in Miami forever, man. Keep me there.”
Sign me? He’s signed for three more years.
It’s not sign me. It’s pay me.
And that’s only going to get louder, as other receivers get new contracts. What if Justin Jefferson gets a real $35 million or more per year? What if Ja’Marr Chase gets close to that?
“Sign me.”
“Pay me.”
Bottom line? At a time when there’s so much focus on working out a new deal with quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, the Dolphins need to be thinking about keeping their best player happy. Our guess is that, beyond what he said publicly, there’s already some private agitation to get something done.
If there isn’t, there will be if/when Jefferson gets paid. After all, it was the Davante Adams contract in 2022 that prompted the push by Hill for a new contract. And that push ended up with Hill playing for a new team.
Last year, the Dolphins’ main objective for quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was trying to keep him healthy for the entire season. This year, the concern has pivoted to making him even more effective when he plays.
The focus has become making him, to use coach Mike McDaniel’s word, “svelte.” Meeting with reporters on Tuesday, McDaniel was asked about the balance between increased weight and durability on one hand, and decreased weight and effectiveness on the other.
“That’s a very understandable misconception,” McDaniel said. “We were not on an offseason weight program last year, it was strength. So him getting stronger and the unintended consequences for him personally and he saw his game, his strength increased but he felt like he could have the same amount of strength and kind of reshape his body and be a little lighter on his feet. So it’s kind of the natural evolution of you get stronger and then you really pay attention to your diet, the times that you’re eating and when your caloric intake is, those types of things, so he can maintain those strength gains while also being a little more limber in the pocket I think is what’s drove him to kind of attack that which he’s done a great job of.”
Strength is one thing. The natural suit of armor that comes from being larger is another. That’s the issue. How big is big enough to keep the player healthy? But how big is too big to keep him from being as good as he can be?
It’s a sliding scale. Lose weight, move faster but become more vulnerable to contact from much larger defensive players. Gain weight, have more natural protection but lose a little acceleration and speed.
Although last year’s approach kept Tua healthy, the Dolphins are trying to bust through the one-and-done playoff ceiling. It’s a calculated risk. The reward is obvious. The Dolphins want to do more than just make the playoffs and go home after the wild-card round.
Running back De’Von Achane made an immediate impact for the Dolphins during his rookie season, but the team thinks there’s still a lot more he can bring to the offense.
Head coach Mike McDaniel said at a Tuesday press conference that this is an “important offseason” for Achane because he was not consumed with preparing for the draft. That means he did not have to make a quick transition to learning a playbook and practicing as a professional, which McDaniel thinks will be beneficial to Achane because he will be able to get a deeper grasp of the offense in his second season.
“Year Two, you kind of let everything settle, understand much more of the whys of everything that you do and for him, the more he can understand within the offense, the more ways he can get the ball,” McDaniel said, via a transcript from the team. “He had outstanding ball production, some of which I know he feels specifically that there’s more out there from the opportunities he had last year and then being able to find different ways to get people the ball whether that’s different types of pass routes, whether that’s different types of run schemes that you can get comfortable with, all those things. More ways to be at the point of attack to play within this offense, that’s what this offseason really provides for him. Seeing some strength gains and you can tell by his body he’s put some work into it and then him just understanding everything about our offense so he can be as big a part of it as possible. That’s his goal.”
Achane missed time with a knee injury during the regular season and had 103 carries for 800 yards and eight touchdowns in 11 games. He also scored three times as a receiver and improving on that kind of output would make the Dolphins an even more dangerous team this time around.
The Dolphins have been in the playoffs the last two years, but they weren’t able to stick around the postseason for a long time either time.
A 34-31 road loss to the Bills knocked them out of the Wild Card round in January 2023 and they lost 26-7 in Kansas City this year. The failure to progress increases the pressure on the Dolphins to show that they’re on the right path this year and running back Raheem Mostert said in an appearance on NFL Network that no one around the Dolphins is losing sight of the need to take that next step.
“We’re an outstanding team, and it has to just click at the end of the year,” Mostert said “I was telling the reporters, man, I’d take an 0-8 start to make it deep into the playoffs, right, and trying to get to that championship round. One of our biggest Kryptonites has always been that first round. That’s gonna be harped on this year. People are gonna say all these different types of things, but we can’t make excuses. We’ve got to go out here and finish the season and finish strong, the same way we started, and just go out here and handle business. Everybody has to be on the same page. We have to be as one, right? That’s all it takes. Nothing bigger, nothing smaller. Just go out there and stay healthy and finish.”
Mostert scored 21 touchdowns in the first 15 games of the 2023 season, but missed the final two games with knee and ankle injuries. He returned to run eight times for 33 yards against the Chiefs and better health down the stretch this year would help the Dolphins’ chances of making some noise in the postseason.