Kelly: Are the Dolphins getting cold feet with Tua? | Opinion

Healthy marriages are built on love, trust and compromise.

The Miami Dolphins organization claims it loves love Tua Tagovailoa, believe he’s the franchise quarterback and stands behind the statistically elite passer.

But where is the proof?

Was it when the franchise publicly courted Deshaun Watson and gave Tagovailoa a dysfunctional offense with very little weaponry around him in 2021?

Or was it when Brian Flores was fired at the end of that season — despite rebounding from a 1-7 start to win eight of the season’s final nine games — because of his inability to work collaboratively with others, which included Tagovailoa, whom Flores had a falling out with in front of the team after a critical 34-3 loss to Tennessee in Week 17, which extinguished Miami’s chances of making the playoffs that season?

How about when owner Steve Ross and general manager Chris Grier secretly, and illegally courted Sean Payton and Tom Brady to coach and quarterback the team in the offseason that followed, right before they hired Mike McDaniel?

And now, despite Tagovailoa leading the Dolphins to the playoffs the past two season while orchestrating one of the NFL’s best offenses, despite him leading the NFL in passer rating (105.5) in 2022, and passing yards (4,624) in 2023, the franchise is nickle and diming its AFC Pro Bowl-starting quarterback on the multiyear extension it claimed was the organization’s top priority this offseason.

Can Tagovailoa really trust the Dolphins?

Last year, when all his peers — Jalen Hurts, Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow — were getting lucrative multiyear deals, Grier and Co. gave Tagovailoa the cold shoulder. Miami wouldn’t even make an offer, and told the quarterback who has delivered four straight winning seasons for the first time in franchise history since Miami managed seven straight winning seasons from 1997 to 2003, to prove himself by staying healthy for an entire season.

Tagovailoa did that, and was an MVP candidate heading into the season’s final week. Yet here we are, a month from the start of training camp, and a deal hasn’t gotten done.

A month is plenty of time to find some common ground, to compromise, which is what Tagovailoa said he wanted in his end-of-minicamp news conference earlier this month, where he delivered an animated, and somewhat agitated “the market is the market” lecture about NFL business.

During this uncomfortable negotiating period there are three critically important questions we need to ask.

Question No. 1: Is Tagovailoa deserving of a lucrative multiyear extension?

Yes!

He has done everything this franchise has asked him to do except win a playoff game.

But that’s a 24-year franchise issue, one caused by eras and regimes filled with dysfunction.

That’s not on Tagovailoa.

The Dolphins finally found and developed an upper-echelon quarterback for the first time since Dan Marino and here we are injecting dysfunction into the culture McDaniel worked so hard to cultivate.

Only two quarterbacks have produced back-to-back seasons with 100-plus passer ratings and that’s Tagovailoa and San Francisco’s Brock Purdy.

But Miami’s offense struggled down the stretch of the season, sputtering in losses to Baltimore, Buffalo and Kansas City, which were all viewed as Super Bowl contenders last season, and did so without a healthy Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle and Raheem Mostert. Yet most of the blame was placed on Tagovailoa’s shoulders.

Now Tagovailoa is fighting the narrative that he can’t win big games based on his body of work the past four seasons, and the Dolphins are likely using that narrative, along with his injury history, against him in their negotiations.

Question No. 2: Does Tagovailoa deserve a pace-setting contract like the deal Detroit just gave Jared Goff and Jacksonville gave Trevor Lawrence?

No!

Just because other teams handed comparable quarterbacks record-setting contracts doesn’t mean Miami has to do the same.

This discussion is comparable to what our parents used say during our adolescent years, which was “just because your friends jumped off a cliff/bridge, would you too?”

The Dolphins are right to stand their ground, not offering Tagovailoa a pace-setting contract just because he’s the next guy up.

They have him under contract on his fifth-year option, which will pay the 26-year-old just less than $23.2 million for this season. And they could retain him for another $43 million in 2025 by using the franchise tag.

Add that up and it means the starting point on what should be guaranteed to Tagovailoa is $66.2 million, plus another two years of his real salary based on the recent deal Miami gave receiver Jaylen Waddle, and how many years of salary his quarterback peers had guaranteed on their deals.

Let’s pretend he will earn something between $45 million and $50 million in average salary per year. Then that brings us to a basement offer of $156 million to $167 million in guaranteed money. What’s Miami’s motivation to sweeten an offer past that?

Exactly who are they bidding against? Nobody but themselves at this time.

But haggling over $10 to $20 million in guaranteed money is a bad look for an organization that has pledged to bend the knee and proposed for months.

The final question: What will Tagovailoa and his camp do if he doesn’t get an acceptable offer?

Could Tagovailoa be a camp holdout in this climate where players are heavily fined for taking contractual stands? That’s unlikely, but Tagovailoa limited his offseason participation to 7-on-7 work only this summer, and it’s possible he could do the same in training camp, and the preseason if a deal doesn’t get done. Miami can’t fine him for taking that stance, or sitting out the work entirely like Christian Wilkins did last year this time.

Will Tagovailoa play 2024 on the fifth-year option, and take out an insurance policy assuming the injury risks? Possibly, but that wouldn’t be ideal, and it would also send an unhealthy message to the quarterback, and the rest of the team, especially since these Dolphins don’t have a reputation of taking care of their own.

The offers made this next month could have a lasting impact on this franchise’s future, and it’s culture, one that could potentially stifle the offense’s progress, and soil relationships, which wouldn’t be ideal for anyone.

From my standpoint, that’s not on Tagovailoa. He has asked for a compromise, which would likely be more guaranteed money at a lower average per year rate.

This is proposal — literally and figuratively — in the franchise’s hands, and at this time Miami’s stall tactic makes it seem as if the Dolphins are getting cold feet.