Dan Orlovsky and Mina on Tua. Not much said really, but hey, it's the Dolphins on TV. Starting at 1:26 - And another:
Uh, Patrick Mahomes sat the bench his first season behind Alex Smith. I put so little stock in these sports analysts
The reports out of camp so far (and a few videos I've seen) seem to completely wipe out what Orlovsky was saying there. And it cracks me up where he dogs out 2 of Tua's throws as "guiding" them (when both receivers should have made the catch), then shows an example of a perfect trust throw, and the receiver had to slow up to catch it, letting the defender hit him...clown level. Tua's strength and confidence were both sub-par for him last season...its completely obvious to anybody who watched his 'Bama play. And as expected, he's put in the work this off-season and is looking far more capable. He's still going to be late or have a little hitch on some throws here and there...but it shouldn't be nearly as prevalent as last year. That, IMO, is going to be the last bugaboo that he has to get rid of.
Orlovsky makes me switch channels every time he appears. His opinion is as worthless as he was in the NFL. BTW: Am I the only one who gets irked by YouTube videos that crib sports network clips and put provocative words in quotation marks for clicks? Where was the "backlash" in the Schefter video? I usually try to find the same clips on a more legitimate source, or at least from somebody who's not trying to trick me into watching.
So far, it sounds like Tua is doing really well in camp. The pads coming on today seemed to shift the advantage to the defense (which is usual), but I definitely like what I see so far...especially how solid our defense already is. If Tua can be productive against them, he'll be productive against almost anyone.
I am so optimistic about what I am hearing out of camp. There is really one part of his game that I wonder aloud if it is a Tua problem or a Dolphins' problem. It seems like both RT and Tua hold to ball too long at points. I really wish that both of them would throw a few more incompletions each game. I really think that sacks on early downs hurt more than what you think. Those early sacks cause offenses to be really predictable on subsequent downs. I also see 2nd and 10 as not as bad of a situation as it sounds. In my mind, your playbook is still very much open. I would have no problem at all running on this down and putting yourself in a 3rd and manageable.
Folks do seem to forget this about Tagovailoa. I’m willing to bet if I were to scour threads past, there would be scores of posts not only praising Tua, but hoping we purposely tanked to get him.
Personally, I don't know why people are worried about what the national media thinks of Tua or anything, really. He's going to play to the best of his abilities regardless, and it will be good enough or it won't. I mean, did we not learn anything from the national media on Tannehill? They've spent the past two years explaining how they knew all along how great he was, even though they trashed him for 6 prior seasons. They're football generalists, with just enough knowledge of each team to carry a conversation.
Burrow was incredible that college season and it's almost perplexing how much he developed that year. I was on the Burrow-bandwagon as well since it was so clear he was special.