The market is the market. And the Dolphins may not be ready to give quarterback Tua Tagovailoa a market deal.
Earlier today, Omar Kelly of the Miami Herald posted a clip from KeynoteUSA’s Jeff Darlington that confirms many of the things we’ve been hearing about negotiations between Miami and its starting quarterback.
Tua wants a market-level agreement. The Dolphins have yet to offer one. Possibly they won’t.
The fact that an agreement has not yet been reached makes this evident. What’s far from obvious is whether Miami will get there before training camp opens.
As explained last week on #PFTPM and in this post, the Dolphins are likely planning to make Tua a final pre-camp offer that will be significantly more valuable than the remainder of his current contract (one year, $23.1 million) but also significantly less valuable than market value, as established by recent contracts given to Lions quarterback Jared Goff ($53 million per year in new money) and Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence ($55 million). If that happens, Tua will have to decide whether to accept the offer or continue to push for more before the season starts.
The question then becomes whether the Dolphins will sufficiently upgrade the offer before Week 1. And the reality is, once Tua reports to camp, he doesn’t really have the leverage to make it happen. Even if he balks and doesn’t practice while talks continue, at some point the negotiations end and the season begins. (That’s what happened two years ago with the Bears and linebacker Roquan Smith, who ultimately didn’t get a long-term contract before playing for the Bears until he was traded to the Ravens at the deadline.)
Tua’s most effective move would be to not show up at all. Will he do that? That likely depends on Miami’s latest pre-camp offer…and her reaction to it.
Depending on the current split, it could be as simple as the first number on Miami’s offer being a “4” and the first number on Tua’s application being a “5.” As explained in the article laying out the various candidates to be the first to receive $60 million per year, there are ways to manipulate the package to increase the average of new money, as the Dolphins did two years ago with receiver Tyreek Hill.
Will it be enough for Tua to accept a deal that seems better than it really is? A long-term deal at the market level in clothing to see what it does this year and perhaps next will generate headlines that Tua got what she wanted. The details could paint a completely different picture.
Remember when the Raiders re-signed Derek Carr and it was widely advertised as a $40 million per year deal? The contract was specifically designed to give Las Vegas an escape route after one season. And they took advantage of it.
In the end, will it be enough for Tua to get a deal that looks better than it is and protects Miami should it fail to progress or potentially regress?
That could be the key to getting a deal done before training camp opens. It could also be the key to avoiding something that rarely happens. An established veteran quarterback who refuses to report to training camp until he gets what he wants.
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