Photo by Nick Cammett
Audio By Carbonatix
It doesn’t take a seasoned NFL expert to state the obvious: Tua Tagovailoa doesn’t look the same this season, and if we’re being honest, he hasn’t been the same quarterback for quite some time.
Beyond that obvious fact, following his second straight three-interception performance in Sunday’s 31–6 loss to the Cleveland Browns, a different question lingers: Is Tua okay?
A noticeable change is apparent, both on the field and off. Tua Tagovailoa seems detached.
The cracks were apparent last season. But this season the foundation crumbled. Tua has notched 11 touchdowns and 10 interceptions — by far the worst start of his NFL career. (Only one other NFL QB has as many interceptions as Tua: 35-year-old Miramar High grad (Class of ’09! Go, Patriots!) Geno Smith of the Las Vegas Raiders. Being mentioned in the same sentence as Geno Smith is…not good.)
He looks timid. He looks uninterested. He seems downright indifferent. He looks unhappy to be wherever he is, and it doesn’t even seem to all be about what is happening in the games themselves. Point-blank: It seems like Tua doesn’t care. Even worse, his demeanor is that of someone on the verge of quiting their 9-to-5 job.
The totality of it all raises the question: Does Tua possess the same drive he once did, or has Tua the man quietly started to take priority over Tua the football player? Because what seems most off is the fact that it seems like his heart isn’t in it any more. It’s worth asking whether Dolphins fans are witnessing the latest example of a player discovering that football isn’t kind to those who aren’t obsessive when it comes to their commitment to the game.
Tua might be realizing what former Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck did before he abruptly retired in 2019 at the top of the sport. Luck left hundreds of millions of dollars on the table following his seventh season. Might Tua be going through a similiar midcareer realization crisis in his sixth?
The Longest Five-Year Career of All Time
Tagovailoa entered the league in 2020 as the anointed franchise savior. Since then, his career has been a roller coaster of concussions, coaching drama, public doubt, and fleeting flashes of All-Pro play, followed up by, well, what fans are witnessing now: utter on-field incompetence.
He has endured everything from being benched as a rookie to having his leadership questioned by former teammates to suffering multiple nationally televised concussions. He has been the poster boy of quarterback debates and the heart of endless “is he the guy?” conversations.
To consider how much Tua has changed in the five years since Miami drafted him, you first need to consider how much has changed around him and happened to him in that time. Everyone changes in their 20s without anyone noticing. In Tua’s case, he’s dealt with both emotional and physical pain as well as an almost unprecedented joy that few can comprehend.
In July 2022, Tua quietly got married. That same year, the couple welcomed their first child, and another followed in 2023. Somewhere between concussions, his best play as a professional, and contract negotiations, Tua became a husband and father.
Those two titles tend to shift any man’s worldview, especially that of a man who’s already amassed generational wealth. Tua’s four-year, $212.1 million contract extension in 2024 guaranteed that.
Football no longer defines Tua, and it shows. His family and financial security do. Football moved down the list of priorities, and success was already achieved. On-field accomplishments that would feel like the top of the mountain in 2020 now rank behind a kid’s birthday party.
And maybe that’s where the detachment comes in, in the context of a man who will always be one hit away from a life-changing concussion. After multiple brain injuries and serious common football ailments that would retire lesser players, much less one who takes his snaps behind one of the worst offensive lines in football, somewhere deep in the back of his mind, the thought must creep in: Is this still worth it?
Don’t take my word for it. Heard it directly from him earlier this season when he told the media, “Whether I throw five picks or five touchdowns, we win the game, we lose the game, I get to come home to my kids who are happy to see me every time.”
After a 2022 season marred by multiple concussions, Tua openly admitted that he’d considered retirement, and that it was his mother who’d urged him to hang it up. “It’s my health. It’s my body. I feel like this is what’s best for me and my family,” he said at the time. “I love the game of football. If I didn’t, I would have quit a long time ago.”
Even those words sounded like a man bargaining with himself. And that conversation transpired before Tua became a father. He might understand where his mother was coming from much more now than he did then.
Back then, even former Raiders coach Antonio Pierce went public, giving Tua advice, saying, “I’d tell him to retire. It’s not worth it. He’s gonna live longer than he plays football. Take care of your family.”
Then came another concussion in 2024. And more life coach advice, this time from a friend and former NFL linebacker, Manti Te’o, who couldn’t hold back tears.
“I want the best for Tua, the man, the father,” Te’o said. “He’s a father of two now. I want him to be able, not today, but 10, 15, 20 years down the line, to walk his daughter down the aisle. That’s what I want for Tua. That’s true joy.”
Again. You have to wonder whether Tua better understands the advice that came from all directions in those moments. Especially in lighe of his own comments on what his kids’ reactions to him mean when he comes home.
This isn’t about questioning Tua’s toughness or commitment. It’s about acknowledging the very human evolution of a man who has seen enough, earned enough, and maybe finally feels enough.
Maybe Tua is just mentally tired, and it’s showing up on the field. Maybe the teammates around him are just that bad, and it makes him look worse than he is. Or maybe Tua is the sum of these parts: husband, father, and millionaire many times over.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s what we’re watching now: not just bad football play, but a man who doesn’t put as much mental investment into a game that has never seemed to fit into his off-field personality.
Maybe Tua isn’t cut out for being an NFL quarterback any more because he doesn’t need to be.
