Each Friday during the 2022 NFL and fantasy football season, Eric Karabell will bring his always-reasonable perspective to highlight the biggest fantasy football storylines heading into the weekend's games.
Fantasy football managers and Miami Dolphins fans want QB Tua Tagovailoa to be great, but he is difficult to evaluate ahead of Sunday night's home game with the Pittsburgh Steelers. After all, Tagovailoa, the heralded No. 5 pick in the 2020 NFL draft, hasn't look like such a special -- or durable -- player in his first few seasons. He has rarely thrown the football downfield for the Dolphins and other than a magical fourth quarter in Week 2 this season, when he torched the Baltimore Ravens' secondary for four touchdown passes in a stunning, comeback win, he hasn't seen much success.
Tagovailoa famously and controversially was cleared of a concussion in Week 3 against the Buffalo Bills, despite clear instability, somehow started just days later in Week 4 at the Cincinnati Bengals and suffered a concussion, which caused him to miss the past two weeks. The Dolphins beat the New England Patriots, Ravens and Bills to start the season, but now enter Sunday's contest having lost three consecutive games. Perhaps we can all cut Tagovailoa some slack because of the concussion and how the situation was awkwardly handled, but we all still covet an answer to this question: is he is a potential top-10 fantasy QB?
The Steelers come off an unexpected win over Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, after holding the future Hall of Famer to 243 passing yards and one touchdown, a below-average 13.7 fantasy points. For the season, the Steelers haven't been so great in suppressing fantasy points to QBs, just like the Ravens, but does that matter today? Can the Steelers deal with WRs Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle? Can any team, really? The Dolphins traded myriad draft picks for the former and spent the sixth pick in the 2021 draft on the latter to give Tagovailoa elite options to throw to. There would be no more excuses about throwing downfield.
Tagovailoa scored 14.8 points against the Patriots in Week 1, averaging 8.2 yards per pass attempt, well above his rate from the first two seasons. OK, that's a positive. The young QB certainly can throw deep, and Hill is among the best there is in getting open downfield, so the problem should be solved. It sure looked that way in the final stanza of the Ravens game, but otherwise, not so much. Tagovailoa tossed six touchdowns that day; he has thrown 29 touchdown passes in his other 26 NFL games.