Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa continues to be one of the most polarizing players in the NFL. Plenty believe he’s great. Plenty believe he’s not. And there’s not much of a middle ground between those camps.
On Wednesday, coach Mike McDaniel was asked about the manner in which Tua handles the reality of high expectations and wins and losses that fail to satisfy them.
“I think it’s one of the reasons I focus on how he grows as a quarterback in the micro instances that I think are so difficult as a franchise quarterback [in] the National Football League,” McDaniel told reporters. “If you’re uncomfortable with the stakes of the game, it’s not a game for you. You’re not going to change the stakes and he knows that, and I think that’s why I put such a priority on focusing on what he’s working on, being able to get better at things.
“While that is also always true, bottom line, black and white, you’re held accountable for the results while you’re trying to get better. That’s difficult. I think he’s as experienced as anyone with positive or negative noise, and I think in that, you find the best version of yourself when you’re able to allow your own thoughts and decisions to dictate your opinion of yourself and how you’re carried towards others and how you handle all those things. So not easy, but I think that’s something that no quarterback in the National Football League is not exposed to. I think that’s something that is very, very challenging and what separates people is that ability to work within the noise. If they tell you you’re awesome or that you suck, how does that relate to what you’re doing to influence your next performance? That’s what he does.”
Still, the bottom line is that Tua’s contract suggests a level of performance that he can’t consistently achieve. And it makes more than fair the question of whether the Dolphins rushed to give him a long-term contract with a new-money average of $53.1 million and three years of fully-guaranteed compensation one full year before he was eligible for free agency.
Who were the Dolphins bidding against? How much would Tua have gotten on the open market?
They could have paid him $23.171 million for 2024 in his fifth-year option. They could have franchise-tagged him at $40.241 million for 2025. They could have tagged him again in 2026 at a 20-percent bump over the 2025 tag — $48.2892 million.
That would have been a three-year haul of $111.7 million, and the Dolphins would have had year-to-year flexibility to end the relationship with no additional cost. Instead, they gave him upwards of $150 million fully guaranteed for three years when they signed him.
Again, why? The contract only increased Tua’s expectations. Which makes the lack of a playoff appearance in 2024 and the current trend of no postseason for 2025 even more glaring.
The contract already seems to have been a massive failure by the Dolphins. It points to an eventual housecleaning in South Florida, unless the Dolphins quickly and decisively turn things around.
And if they move on from the G.M. or the coach (or both), the Dolphins will still owe Tua his full salary for the first year of the next regime, one that surely will want to find a new quarterback for the Miami Dolphins.
The Dolphins signed safety Jordan Colbert to the active roster from the practice squad on Wednesday, the team announced.
He takes the roster spot of cornerback Cornell Armstrong, whom the Dolphins placed on injured reserve.
Colbert made his NFL debut in Week 3, playing 12 special teams snaps against the Bills. He made one tackle.
He entered the NFL as an undrafted college free agent in 2024 and spent his rookie season on the Dolphins’ practice squad.
The team also signed cornerback Kendall Sheffield to the practice squad.
He spent part of the 2025 offseason and training camp with the Dolphins.
Sheffield has appeared in 49 career games, with 20 starts, in his time with the Falcons (2019-21), 49ers (2023), Titans (2023) and Jets (2024). He has totaled 108 tackles, six passes defensed and two forced fumbles in his career, along with six special teams tackles.
The Dolphins have placed another cornerback on injured reserve.
Head coach Mike McDaniel told reporters at a Wednesday press conference that Cornell Armstrong is the latest addition to the list. Armstrong is dealing with a hamstring injury.
Jason Marshall was placed on injured reserve recently and the Dolphins lost Kader Kohou and Artie Burns to season-ending injuries over the summer.
Armstrong had two tackles in three games for Miami.
McDaniel said that the Dolphins will add a cornerback to the roster, but he did not identify who the team has in mind. Jack Jones, Storm Duck, Rasul Douglas, Ethan Bonner, and JuJu Brents are already on the roster.
Free agent wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. revealed that he is facing a six-game suspension for violating the NFL’s performance-enhancing drug policy.
Beckham made the revelation during an appearance on The Pivot. He said that he never knowingly consumed any banned substances, but that a test he took while with the Dolphins in 2024 showed an abnormal testosterone level.
A report in August said that Beckham was looking to play this season and that he had heard from teams, but his unavailability is unlikely to help him find a place to continue his career.
Beckham played nine games for the Dolphins last season and had nine catches for 55 yards. He had 35 catches for the Ravens in 2023 and did not play in 2022 while recovering from a torn ACL.
The NFL has a history of winning in court. Lately, it hasn’t been.
On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied a request by the league for an “en banc” (full court) review of the August 2025 decision from a three-judge panel denying the NFL’s effort to push pending legal claims filed by former Dolphins coach Brian Flores against the NFL, the Giants, the Broncos, and the Texans to arbitration.
Last week, the Nevada Supreme Court denied the NFL’s request for rehearing of the full-court decision to allow former Raiders coach Jon Gruden’s lawsuit against the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell to proceed in court, not arbitration.
In September 2025, Flores filed a separate motion with the federal trial court handling the case for reconsideration of the original order sending Flores’s claims against the Dolphins to arbitration. Flores focused on the portion August 2025 appellate decision invalidating the Commissioner’s ultimate control over arbitration claims filed against the NFL. It also argued that the arbitration process has been at a “complete standstill” since November 2024.
The September 2025 motion includes the claims of Steve Wilks against the Cardinals and Ray Horton against the Titans.
The Flores case was filed in February 2022, with Wilks and Horton later joining the litigation. The lawsuit has still not moved to the merits of the dispute, more than three-and-a-half years later.
Flores currently serves as the Vikings’ defensive coordinator, and Wilks was hired earlier this year to be the Jets’ defensive coordinator.
