Tua Tagovailoa looks noticeably thinner at Dolphins event amid contract extension rumors

Tua Tagovailoa made a markedly different appearance at a recent meet-and-greet event with fans last week.

The Miami Dolphins quarterback, who is billed at 6-foot-1, 227 pounds according to Pro Football Reference, looked closer to 200 pounds at the event. And his new arrival has the football world roaring about his durability.

Tagovailoa is entering his fifth season as an NFL quarterback, but has only played more than 13 games in a single season once in his career, which was last season. There were injury concerns around the league — in fact, Tagovailoa missed much of his final season at Alabama after suffering a major hip injury late in 2019 — but Miami took a chance on him despite those concerns, selecting him at No. five overall in 2020. He’s been good ever since and was selected to his first Pro Bowl last season.

Colin Cowherd thinks his thin body is a recipe for disaster.

“He’s a pocket quarterback,” Cowherd said Monday on The Herd. “It’s a bit alarming. He looked very, very thin. … I’ve said this before, aesthetics matter. Last week I saw an organization take a beer out of Luka Dončić’s hand in a hallway that the fans couldn’t see because there was a camera to the side.”

It’s not just aesthetics that matter, Cowherd said, but he also said that most of the NFL’s elite quarterbacks weren’t exactly skinny, naming Peyton and Eli Manning, Tom Brady, John Elway, Bett Farve and Aaron Rodgers among the legends who didn’t they matched exactly. a thin profile.

Cowherd then gave an apt analogy for his quarterback preferences.

“I like my quarterbacks like my furniture,” he said. “Big and hard to move. You need two or three people. If you can get into a hatchback by yourself, I don’t care. Attract someone else. Tua is not a hyper-athletic quarterback who wants to get there faster. He is not He is not big. He doesn’t have a power arm to me, 6’5, 230. He once played 14 seasons with a torn ACL.

Tagovailoa isn’t the only quarterback who looked noticeably thinner during the offseason. Lamar Jackson appeared to have lost weight in several offseason workout videos posted on social media, and his frame has also been the subject of much discussion.

Cowherd argued, however, that Jackson’s mobility makes the weight loss more excusable.

“I understand a little bit about Lamar Jackson losing weight,” Cowherd said. “He’s hyper-mobile, maybe he wants to get faster… I like big, I like rugged, I like being able to play bad. I do not understand.

“I can’t believe there wasn’t at least one Miami upstairs saying, ‘Wow, (Tua) looks thin.’ He’s already small, he already has an average arm.”

However, Miami still seems ready to hand Tagovailoa a long-term contract to be their quarterback of the future. The Athletic reported Monday that Tagovailoa and the Dolphins are still expected to work out a contract extension at some point later this summer.

Miami is coming off an 11-6 record and a first-round playoff exit at Kansas City in January. Tagovailoa threw for 4,624 yards and 29 TDs during the regular season. He threw 14 interceptions and connected on 69.3 percent of his pass attempts.

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