Is Tua Tagovailoa a top-5 NFL Quarterback?

Folks on both sides of the aisle will argue until they’re blue in the face. Let’s use objective facts to pin down a fair and honest ranking for the ascending young signal caller.

Robert Griffin III made a splash by declaring Tua Tagovailoa a “top five quarterback” who has earned the right to be paid like one. A lot of fans will nod in agreement, while others will go into a social media rage. Everyone will have their own opinion, but if we’re going to fairly nail down where he belongs, we need to do it off measurable statistics/metrics. I’ve broken down the film on every start of Tua’s career, and we’ll talk a bit about what story that tells at the end, but the focus here will be on objective measurements.

*These metrics and stats will focus on regular season performance

What do raw statistics say?

Even the most casual Dolphins fan will likely be aware of Tua’s raw statistics over the last two seasons. Raw statistics can have their limitations, which we’ll address after going over the most pertinent ones, but they still have their use. We’re also going to clump in quarterback rating and ESPN QBR into these statistics since they are widely accepted and generally understood by most fans.

Here are those statistics from the 2022 and 2023 seasons along with where Tagovailoa ranked among other qualifying NFL quarterbacks….

2022

Completion %: 64.8% (16th)

Yards: 3,548 (12th)

TDs: 25 (8th)

Int: 8 (6th fewest)

QB Rating: 105.5 (1st)

QBR: 70.6 (3rd)

2023

Completion %: 69.3% (3rd)

Yards: 4,679 (1st)

TDs: 29 (5th)

Int: 14 (23rd fewest)

QB Rating: 101.5 (4th)

QBR: 60.8 (10th)

Raw statistics and traditional quarterback grading metrics (QBR & QB rating) tend to only tell a portion of the story with a quarterback’s performance. That’s because they don’t do a great job at separating who is doing the heavy lifting on an offense. For a very generalized example, if a quarterback attempts one pass in a game, and that happens to be a screen from his 20-yard line that a running back/receiver then runs in for a touchdown, his QB rating will be 158.3. The quarterback didn’t do anything special, but if you look at this stat line you may think that they did. Since this limitation exists, our best course of action is to find more advanced metrics that look more closely at what the quarterback is asked to do.

What about advanced metrics?

For this exercise, we are going to look at a few useful data points from three different data-collecting organizations. The first place we are going to look is nfelo. They collect numerous data points, but the three we are going to focus on are CPOE (completion percentage over expected), EPA/db (expected points added per dropback), and WPA/db (win probability added per dropback).

CPOE takes into account the difficulty and likelihood of a pass being completed in relation to an average quarterback. If you have a positive CPOE (the higher the better) that would indicate that you are more likely to complete most passes than the average NFL quarterback. EPA is expected points added in comparison to an average baseline. This means that every time a quarterback drops back, this is how many points (on average) they are adding to their offense in relation to an average starter. Win probability added works in a similar way, but is instead representing their impact on the chance of their team winning a game. All of these figures can be positive (good) or negative (bad). Let’s see where Tua ranked in these metrics for both 2022 and 2023.

2022

CPOE: 1.4% (9th)

EPA/db: .24 (2nd)

WPA/db: .006 (3rd)

2023

CPOE: 4.4% (4th)

EPA/db: .18 (4th)

WPA/db: .005 (6th)

To cover our tracks here, we are going to look at these same metrics (except replacing WPA/db with a CPOE+EPA composite score) that were collected by rbsdm.

2022

CPOE: 1.4% (7th)

EPA/db: .242 (2nd)

CPOE+EPA composite: .148 (2nd)

2023

CPOE: 4.5% (4th)

EPA/db: .16 (4th)

CPOE+EPA composite: .139 (4th)

The third and final set of data points that we will look at is from everyone’s favorite analytics giant, Pro Football Focus. A lot of folks have reasons for disliking PFF (some more logical and thought out than others), but the truth remains that they are the most mainstream of all football analytics companies. Their top stat for stacking NFL quarterbacks iS their PFF passing grade. This Passing grade is developed by grading each throw a quarterback makes and grading that throw on a scale from -2 to +2 in increments of .5. When taking into account the grade of each throw, things like distance, coverage, and throw difficulty are all factored in.

Two things that weigh heavily on PFF passing grade are Big Time Throws (BTT) and Turnover Worthy Plays (TWP). Along with PFF Passing Grade we’ll look at Tua’s BTT% and TWP% as well.

2022

PFF Passing Grade: 81.4 (4th)

BTT%: 4.3% (12th)

TWP%: 4.2% (21st lowest-tied)

2023

PFF Passing Grade: 90.2 (1st)

BTT%: 6.0% 1st-tied)

TWP%: 3.5% (20th lowest)

Now that we have gotten all of the numbers out of the way, what does this all indicate? Well it is fairly obvious that Tua Tagovailoa has been leading one of the NFL’s most explosive offenses over the last two seasons. When we use metrics meant to to isolate his play, we can see that Tagovailoa isn’t merely a product of great weapons-but rather one of the driving forces behind this offense’s success. There have been two things that have held Tua back and that is his lack of production with his legs and his propensity for putting the ball in harms way at times. Both things have negatively impacted his PFF grades and his EPA numbers.

Final Verdict

Now we have to answer the question: is Tua Tagovailoa one of the five best quarterbacks in the NFL? The statistics and advanced metrics would indicate that you have a really strong argument for him being in the conversation as a top-5 quarterback. There is the final portion of this, how has he looked on film? Based on my own analysis, Tagovailoa took massive steps in 2023. The biggest difference is that he makes a couple really impressive throws each week now (something that shows up in his PFF big time throw%).

I won’t tell anyone what they should think, but this is the part where I give my opinion. I think Tua Tagovailoa belongs somewhere between the 5th and 8th best quarterback in the NFL right now. If he is able to take another step forward in 2024, he’ll easily crack that top-5. Some things holding him back are his inability to make plays with his legs (an emphasis this off season) and his performances in big games/the postseason. A playoff win in 2024 would go a long way towards Tua landing higher on many QB rankings, but until then he seems to be knocking at the door of the NFL’s truly elite quarterbacks.