It’s that time of year once again! Football Absurdity will bring you a breakdown of every notable fantasy football-relevant player throughout June, July, and August. We start off with the quarterbacks. No quarterback in the NFL got more upgrades around him than Tua Tagovailoa this season. He ended up with a hot coaching hire, one of the best wide receivers in the NFL, one of the best left tackles in the NFL, and a bevy of other weapons. But, does it matter for fantasy football? Let’s take a look at Tua with the 2022 Tua Tagovailoa fantasy football player profile!
Tua Tagovailoa ADP and AAV:
Average Draft Position: QB16, 123 overall
Average Auction Value: $1.4
Tua Tagovailoa Statistics:
| Year | G | GS | Att | Comp | Comp% | Yds | TD | Int | Comp/G | Att/G | Yds/G | TD/G | INT/G |
| 2021 | 13 | 12 | 263 | 388 | 67.8% | 2653 | 16 | 10 | 20.2 | 29.8 | 204.1 | 1.2 | 0.8 |
| 2020 | 10 | 9 | 290 | 186 | 64.1% | 1814 | 11 | 5 | 29.0 | 18.6 | 181.4 | 1.1 | 0.5 |
| Year | 4 PPTD | 6 PPTD | 4 PPTD/G | 6 PPTD/G | Year | Att | Yd | TD | YPC | Att/G | Yd/G | |
| 2021 | 180.9 | 212.9 | 13.9 | 16.38 | 2021 | 42 | 128 | 3 | 3.0 | 3.2 | 9.8 | |
| 2020 | 135.5 | 157.5 | 13.6 | 15.75 | 2020 | 36 | 109 | 3 | 3.0 | 3.6 | 10.9 |
| Year | Air Yards | aDOT | aDOT+ | Y/A | TD% | INT% | Sacks | Yds/Sack |
| 2021 | 2729 | 7.03 | 7.03 | 6.80 | 6.1% | 3.8% | 20 | 7.60 |
| 2020 | 2082 | 7.52 | 0.22 | 6.26 | 3.8% | 1.7% | 20 | 6.80 |
aDOT+ represents a player’s depth of target compared to the league average for that season. Air yards data is from FTNFantasy.com/air-yards
2022 Tua Tagovailoa Fantasy Football Overview:
In the pop-off season (late Winter and early Spring), I said that if the Dolphins beefed up the line, get Tua an offensive-minded head coach, and got him some weaponry upgrades, I’d have a hard time keeping him out of my top-ten. Turns out I’m full of it because all of that happened and I can easily keep Tua out of my top ten at the position. There are just too many question marks surrounding Tua’s stylistic match with his weaponry. He ranked #31 in air yards per attempt last season, making pairing him with Tyreek Hill an oddity. The Dolphins also got him Chase Edmonds, which should help with dump-offs. But if former 49ers’ OC turned Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel runs his offense like San Francisco ran theirs, there won’t be many targets to Chase Edmonds (remove fullback Kyle Juszczyk’s targets from the 49ers last year and they rank dead last in RB targets at 58).
I’m just not quite sure what we are supposed to do with Tua this year, to be honest. I want him to be top ten. Everything around him indicates that he can be top-ten, I just can’t trust it yet. He needs to be a top-flight passer to make everything go since he doesn’t run the ball (10.3 rushing yards per game) and I’m just not buying that he can be alongside Matthew Stafford, Tom Brady and Joe Burrow as guys who can pass enough to dig themselves out of the hole their lack of rushing creates.
2022 Tua Tagovailoa Fantasy Football Draft Strategy:
Tua Tagovailoa Auction Value: $-
Draft Ranking: Find out for your league settings in a Beersheet! (coming in early July)
Tua is basically the same cost as Trey Lance, Derek Carr, Jameis Winston, and Kirk Cousins in salary cap drafts. They all go for between $1 and $2, and are all decentish QB2 values. They’re also all guys you want to try to slap together to create some value. While Tua doesn’t have the upside of a Trey Lance, he also doesn’t have the security of a Derek Carr or Kirk Cousins. I like Tua to break out, but to be honest, I’m not sure why anyone would go out of their way to get him in a combination with any of those guys. He has less downside than Jameis, which I guess is the best thing going for him at that price point?
In snake drafts, he goes behind the Derek Carr/Kirk Cousins tier and goes alongside Justin Fields. That’s somewhere I can get down with getting Tua as an upside play. He is pick 126 overall, and the guys around him are Darrell Henderson and Michael Gallup, two dudes you need to stash and see. With Tua, you can take him as the second part of a platoon and move on from him the second anything breaks down. Unfortunately, like Trey Lance at his AAV, I can’t get down with Tua at his ADP if Justin Fields is still on the table. Fields goes three picks later, so chill out and see if you can get Fields. Fields has the higher ceiling after round ten, you’re firing for upside. Tua has less of that than Fields and is a fallback option there if Fields gets overdrafted.
Best Case Scenario:
Tyreek Hill, Chase Edmonds, Mike Gesicki, and Jaylen Waddle provide Tua with enough weaponry that he doesn’t have to do any of the hard parts, and they carry him to a top-ten finish.
Worst Case Scenario:
The insanely convoluted Operation Tom Brady Becomes A Part Owner Of Miami And Also The Starting Quarterback Somehow comes to fruition, putting Tua on the bench. That or he plays terribly and they turn to Teddy Bridgewater, who the Dolphins paid $4.4 million as a priority backup.
Check out all our 2022 player profiles, here.
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