Miami boasts a crowded QB room
That brings us nicely onto the current Quarterback room. At writing, the Dolphins have Tua, Fitz, Rosen, and Ruddock waiting to make an impact. Ruddock is on a futures contract and I can only see him contributing in preseason (if preseason happens).
Rosen is an interesting prospect having not really shown anything worthy of his number 10 overall pick in the 2018 draft. Cutting him a bit of slack, he has had a new offensive coordinator in pretty much every year he’s played in both college and at the pro level, and in the last two seasons, he’s been centered behind some truly awful offensive lines.
That being said, he can come across as quite arrogant being tagged as entitled, disliked by teammates, and branded as the ‘rich kid’. Being so outspoken and saying thing’s like ‘I don’t need football’ doesn’t really prompt you to get the violins out for the kid either.
However, the current coaching setup seems to like him and have spoken highly about his work ethic and attitude, so maybe he’s turned a corner and has done a bit of growing up. Let’s not forget that he’s younger than the current number one draft pick Joe Burrow.
Social media has been full of speculation that it might be worth trying to trade him, but my argument would be for what? The current quarterback situation in the league finds Cam Newton unable to find a team and Andy Dalton and Jameis Winston on one-year deals.
Grier did a great job somehow negotiating a potential 7th round pick for Charles Harris but I think this might be a bit beyond him. So why not cut him? Well, he’s still on a rookie contract so isn’t expensive and it wouldn’t really have that much of an impact on the cap.
So keep him. The roster size will increase by two spaces to 55 at the start of the 2020 season and that means that potentially, should you want to, you could have 3 Quarterbacks on your game day roster.
Where do we stand heading into 2020?
It’s Fitz’s job to lose at the moment, but if he goes down in the 3rd quarter of the first game would you really want to just thrust Tua in there? The other advantage of keeping Rosen as the backup is that should you decide you want to try and move him on before his contract expires, you can try and up his stock by giving him some game time and hope he shows a bit of spark when thinking about potential future trades.
The last factor I want to discuss is that of Chris Grier, he simply has to play this one right! I was impressed with the way he handled the build-up to the draft and while waiting for the number 5 pick to be called I still in the dark and had no idea if it was going to be Tua, Herbert or an offensive tackle, so kudos for that and overall I liked the fact that they addressed positional need over best player available.
But the last couple of drafts haven’t really played out how they were intended, trading away the 2016 (when somebody offers you two first-round picks for a tackle you take it), 2017 and 2018 first-round picks and the 2019 class not really amounting to much outside of Christian Wilkins and Needham and Williams who were free agents.
The pressure hasn’t built up enough to warrant a winning season in 2020 as this is a planned rebuild over several seasons but it’s clear the ownership wants improvement let alone what the fan base want. So I think Grier will scrutinize the process to the nth degree and only when he’s happy everything has fallen into place will he pull the trigger… ultimately his job is dependent on this.
So the question still remains, when is the right time to give Tua the keys to the franchise. It’s highly unlikely he gets redshirted, you’re basically admitting that he isn’t ready physically, which begs the question why did you draft an injured player at 5 and I think after last year’s performance the fans that stuck with it deserve to see him take the field.
I also think Tua’s not the type of character that would feel happy doing that, he wants to be as involved as possible so he can start winning the locker room. So that’s a no for the effective redshirt. It’s also a no on starting him.
If you look at how Patrick Mahomes and to an extent Lamar Jackson were managed into starting behind center and the success they’ve had, to me it makes so much sense to do the same. There is still no guarantee that this O-Line is the real deal so why would you put an inexperienced (at pro level) player still learning the playbook and rhythms of the team into a position of pressure.
It just makes sense to sit him behind Fitz alongside Rosen and let him learn, absorb, and apply the knowledge, experience, and understanding he brings to the game. The Dolphins faithful have been waiting for upwards of 20 years for a quarterback they can confidently say is there for the long haul, waiting a few more months surely wouldn’t hurt…. Would it?
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