Predicting a full stat-line for QB Tua Tagovailoa in 2022

Miami Dolphins’ quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is entering a make or break year three. What kind of numbers can be put up this coming season?

The Miami Dolphins had a clear vision for their 2022 offseason, and they appeared to have crushed it.  Their starting quarterback, Tua Tagovailoa, has had an up and down first two seasons in the NFL.

He’s flashed potential to be a franchise quarterback at times, but he’s also made the general NFL landscape doubt his viability as a franchise signal caller.

In 2020 and 2021, the Dolphins’ weren’t exactly doing Tua many favors.  The additions of Jaylen Waddle, Tyreek Hill, Terron Armstead, and a new slew of running backs will certainly help and give a more fair assessment of Tua’s true ability.

Not only that, the team hired football-whiz and Shanahan descendant Mike McDaniel to lead the team as their new head coach.

McDaniel is perhaps one of the smartest men in the league, and does appear to be bringing an offensive scheme with him that has shown to be rather quarterback friendly.

Since the Dolphins have made a ton of quality additions on offense, it’s fair to wonder just what kind of numbers Tua can put up in 2022.

So, let’s try and predict just that.

I’ll start by figuring out how often Mike McDaniel-led offenses throw the ball, so we can get a baseline for the rest of the predictions.

Mike McDaniel has served one year as an offensive coordinator, which was in 2021 with the San Francisco 49ers.

The 49ers actually threw the ball at the second lowest rate in the NFL, only passing it 29.4 times per game.  This is no surprise though, as Kyle Shanahan’s career thus far in San Francisco has been built off of a quality run game.

29.4 rounds down to 29, and given that McDaniel is set to bring a similar, or virtually the same offense to Miami, we can reasonably expect the Dolphins to throw it 29 times per game.

Tua Tagovailoa has a career completion percentage of 66.2%, so we’ll bring that into our 2022 predictions.

66.2% of 29 projected attempts is 19.19, or 19 completions per game.

So, we could reasonably expect Tua to average a 19/29 passing line per game in 2022.

If that holds over a 17-game season, we’d get 326/493 for the passing output.

Now, time for the yards.

If we take Tua’s career yardage total of 4,467 and divide that by how many completions he’d had 449, we’d get 9.94 yards per completion.

Obviously, this means that for every pass Tua has completed in his career thus far, he can expect to gain 9.94 yards.

If we take 9.94 and multiply it by our projected completions for 2022 of 326, we’d get 3,240 yards.

The touchdowns and interceptions are calculated the same way.

Tua has a touchdown rate of 4%, meaning 4% of his attempted passes go for touchdowns.

If we take his projected attempts in 2022 of 493 and multiply it by 4%, we’d get 19.72, or 20 touchdown passes.

His interception rate is 2.2%, so 2.2% of 493 is 10.85, or 11 interceptions.

Putting it all together, I’ll project that Tua Tagovailoa completes 326/493 passes for 3,240 yards, 20 touchdowns, and 11 interceptions in 2022.

This would be a passer rating of 88.8, which is right at his career total.

For reference, Jimmy Garoppolo in 2021 had a very similar stat line while Mike McDaniel was the offensive coordinator.  Jimmy G completed 301/441 passes for 3,810 yards, 20 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions.

Dolphins fans might not be very excited about this, but the offense that Mike McDaniel will run is going to feature a very heavy dose of the run game and calls for a quarterback to simply manage the offense, as indicated by what his mentor, Kyle Shanahan has done in San Francisco.