Miami Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa Completed 28 Passes Sunday

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — New MVP favorite Tua Tagovailoa was his best self in the Miami Dolphins‘ 36-34 victory over the Los Angeles Chargers, leading all NFL quarterbacks in Week 1 with 466 passing yards and three touchdowns.

But which of Tagovailoa’s 28 completions was Mike McDaniel’s favorite?

PFN asked him at his Monday news conference, and it probably wasn’t the one that you think.

Miami Dolphins’ Mike McDaniel Revisits Tua Tagovailoa’s Boffo Day

It wasn’t Tagovailoa’s 47-yard off-platform throw to Tyreek Hill on the Dolphins’ game-winning drive.

It wasn’t the four-yard touchdown pass to Hill at the end of that possession.

And it wasn’t Tagovailoa’s escape act completion to Braxton Berrios that went for 16 yards on 3rd-and-15.

Rather, it was his deep touchdown to Hill on the Dolphins’ first offensive snap after Tua threw an end-zone interception. Hill raced past J.C. Jackson — who was alone in coverage — and caught a perfectly placed ball in stride for a 35-yard score.

TUA. TYREEK. BIG TD

📺: #MIAvsLAC on CBS
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/tFCmTc99w0

— NFL (@NFL) September 10, 2023

“Those are things that are not easy to do,” McDaniel said. “It was my favorite because it was more of a team moment. That was a series of plays, starting with the interception that he targeted Braxton [Berrios] on, because on that specific play, the Chargers got the ball on the 4-yard line because they intercepted it, and [Jaylen] Waddle and [Salvon Ahmed] didn’t stop playing and got a tackle on the four.

“Got the ball back following a really good play by Kader [Kohou] on a well-timed blitz that is rarely executed, to be honest. Free runners at quarterbacks generally miss for whatever reason. We’ve been emphasizing some technique, he got the sack, and then we had a great punt return blocked up, but it was a short kick.

“So we had a short field, and off that momentum, Tyreek Hill started making it very known that he was ready to make a play. I fancy myself as a great listener. That throw culminated a team effort that is very, very important, playing off each other in the various phases that are important to winning close games like that.”

Given McDaniel’s team-first mindset, it’s a totally understandable answer. But it probably wasn’t one with which most would agree.

In our (wholly scientific) Twitter poll asking to name Tua’s best throw from Sunday, the vast majority of Dolphins fans picked the 47-yarder to Tyreek on 3rd-and-10, which, quite honestly, was unlike anything we’ve seen from him before — given the stakes, the situation, and the degree of difficulty.

What was Tua’s best throw Sunday?

— Adam Beasley (@AdamHBeasley) September 11, 2023

“I need to open more practices to you guys,” McDaniel joked when we informed him we hadn’t seen that throw very often from Tua. “That’s really cool stuff from a developing quarterback that is finding his own footing in how he plays because he went through his progression, felt the pressure in a good interior pocket, utilized that, and then did something that most people can’t do with their writing hand let alone their non-writing hand like he does it.

“That was a good one too, but I really liked him taking advantage of everything that he’s learned and really focused on and had a game application, similar to the preseason rep where you throw an interception and then what?

MORE: Miami Dolphins Week 1 Snap Counts

“And in a game like that, for all three phases to come together at that moment, and then for the three phrases to play off of each other, when the offense scores the final touchdown but leaves a solid amount of time left on the clock, Jason [Sanders] is one of the guys we count on most on the entire team and pushes one, and then the defense comes and saves the day and wins the game.

“Those ones, especially where he was participating in big team moments like that one, were the most important to me.”

This angle of Tua’s DIME to Tyreek Hill 🔥

(🎥 @micbro21)
pic.twitter.com/Eye7fdCYaj

— PFF (@PFF) September 11, 2023