What did we learn about Tua in 2020?
I had a set of questions in mind all off-season that guided this article: how would our projection of Tua shape up had he not played last year? What did we really learn about him last year? The narrative, it seems, is that Tua really struggled in year 1, and while not yet a bust, he remains a real question mark. But did we notice a fundamental change in his play from college that made him a special prospect? Should we be discounting him from his small sample last year? Should we be putting more stock in his draft prior rather than last season? Let’s dive in:
The overarching 2020 narrative:
Tua’s 2020 season seems to be defined by uncertainty and controversy. Tua’s health was in question following a devastating hip injury a year prior. This narrative quieted when, following the Dolphins bye in week 7, Tua became the starter replacing Ryan Fitzpatrick. This move sparked surprise and controversy.
But Tua’s roller-coaster season only continued. In weeks 10 and 15, Fitzpatrick replaced Tua late as the Dolphins mounted their comeback attempts--not exactly a vote of confidence for the young QB. His play did not silence his crtitics. Nonetheless, Fitzpatrick moved on to WFT, and Tua opens the season as the unquestioned starter and a year further from the hip surgery. Which Tua will we see? The can’t miss college QB or the shaky Tua from last year?
Tua’s 2020:
Let’s now analyze his 2020 stats. Tua finished 31/38 Qb’s with a 65.4 PFF grade. While not a superb mark by any stretch, his grade was still higher than the likes of Kyler Murray, Josh Allen, and Derek Carr in their rookie years. And interestingly enough, as the graphs below show, Tua had drastic splits in his EPA(expected points added) and CPOE(completions over expected) on early downs vs third down. (The blue dotted line is his total average).
Tua had some drastic splits depending on down. To provide some context relative to the rest of the league:
Tua was among the worst in the NFL on 3rd downs: 31/34 in CPOE/EPA composite
Tua was league average on 1st and 2nd down: 16/34 in CPOE/EPA composite
The question, then, is why this might be the case? I had a couple of ideas:
Third down, and most likely, as PFF has well documented, is an unstable and noisy metric. It would, therefore, not be all that surprising to see Tua’s 3rd down metrics come more in line with his early-down numbers in the future.
Tua faced farther 3rd down distances and failed to throw past the sticks often, tanking his EPA. When looking at the data, this turned out to be simply false. The average 3rd down distance in the NFL in 2020 was 7.5 yds, and the attempts past the sticks were at 56%. Tua’s average distance was 7.2 yards, and he threw past the sticks 61% of the time. The issue is that he struggled with accuracy on these downs, 10% below average based on PFF’s “on target %” metric.
Potential Areas of Concern:
Conservatism:
Only 10% of his throws traveled 20+ yards downfield, good for 29/39th qualifiers. And his 10-19 range downfield wasn’t much better, with 19% of his throws coming in that range, 25/39. Tua was not pushing the ball much.
Accuracy:
As the CPOE chart above shows, his CPOE was negative.
His on-target % was 25th in the league.
As the below graph suggests, he struggled with accuracy on passes thrown in the 10-19 range
Areas for hope:
Tua’s accuracy numbers should come as a bit of a surprise, considering the report on Tua coming out of school. As the PFF draft profile notes, Tua has “pinpoint accuracy by any measure. Excellent accuracy charting numbers over the past two years.” And upon taking a closer look, maybe Tua’s future range of outcomes more closely aligns with the college scouting report.
Tua was inaccurate in all the unstable areas.
We already mentioned the variance of 3rd down, but even his accuracy metrics are a story of inaccuracy in the unstable areas. Tua’s on target % was league average from a clean pocket and without pressure(stable metrics), but 8% worse than league average while under pressure, and 10% worse on 3rd down(unstable metrics).
2. Tua, unlike Fitzpatrick, excels with separators, not with contested-catch receivers.
This was exactly the scouting report coming out of school: as the PFF draft profile notes: Tua is “gun shy firing to tight windows. Hasn’t had to at Alabama.” While I, unfortunately, don’t have access to robust separation data, according to NGS data I can see, Devante Parker and Mike Gesicki ranked #1 and #3 in the NFL generating the least amount of separation per route. These guys accounted for close to a 1/3 of Tua’s targets on the year. And, more importantly for our purposes, those guys accounted for close to 60% of Tua’s targets in the 10-19 range. It is perhaps because the two could not generate much separation, and that Tua is gun shy throwing without separation, that he struggled so much in that zone of the field. Without separation, Tua failed to push the ball down the field, getting rid of the ball quickly and, when forced to throw to the intermediate area, his accuracy suffered immensely.
While, unfortunately, this sort of analysis is more speculative because of the lack of available data, we can still build the case for Tua in 2021. It certainly seems like Tua struggled in the unstable parts of the game, and mostly in one area of the field where his receivers were unable to get open. The Dolphins recognized the issue by adding WRs who excel in the deeper areas of the field in Will Fuller and Jayln Waddle. These guys should better generate separation and, because of their deep prowess, should allow areas to open up underneath. This should allow for Tua to excel in the facet of the game that made him a special prospect: anticipating open receivers and throwing the ball to them exceptionally accurately.
Bottom line:
This leads me back to my initial question: what did we really learn about Tua? There are certainly question marks, and unlike the real greats, Tua failed to transcend his circumstances with elite play. But there are also reasons for optimism: his struggles were in unstable areas and the Dolphins added receivers better suited for his style of play. I’m not so sure that a year farther removed from his hip injury we should not be putting more stock in his strong draft prior, rather than his tumultuous 2020 season.
In terms of profiting, I think the best way to capitalize on this analysis is to take a wait-and-see approach over the first few weeks. If Tua remains conservative in throwing down the field, it seems the dolphins present little value on the market. But if he starts to push the ball it seems that a Dolphins stack might be seriously underpriced and low-owned stack in DFS tournaments early in the season.
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Sources: PFF, RBSDM, NGS, NflfastR