Ryan Fitzpatrick pinpoints how Tua Tagovailoa can join group of AFC’s elite quarterbacks

There is no doubt that Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is off to the hottest start of his young career.

At the moment, Tagovailoa is second in the league in passing yards with 925, tied for third in the league in passing touchdowns with eight and first in the league with a QBR of 82.8. In a lot of ways, he’s gotten off to the start that every Dolphins fan, coach and executive dreamed about all summer long.

While the early returns on Tagovailoa through the first three games of the season have been amazing, former Dolphins quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick recently stated that the third-year passer has to be more consistent if he wants to start being considered among the best young passers in the NFL.

“The biggest thing is just consistency, which is a hard thing, and something I chased for my whole career,” Fitzpatrick admitted during a Zoom session with reporters. “It’s going to be finding that consistency, because now we’ve seen him do it, we’ve seen him do it at the highest level.”

Of course, consistency is the key to success for every NFL player, but it is even more important for quarterbacks. The success of a quarterback has a massive impact on both sides of the ball as well as team morale. If a team feels it can trust its quarterback, success often follows.

Tagovailoa’s numbers are certainly impressive, but it is important to acknowledge that his Week 2 outpour still seems like something of an outlier.

In that game, Tagovailoa completed 36 passes for 469 yards and six touchdowns. He did it in an amazing comeback victory over the Baltimore Ravens.

There’s no reason to diminish that performance, but it’s worth it to keep in mind that over the other two games of the season, he’s passed for just 456 yards and two scores. Another game with multiple passing touchdowns for Tagovailoa would be great to see.

He will hopefully get a chance to do just that in Thursday night’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals. The game should feature a matchup of two of the most exciting young passers in the league in Tagovailoa and Joe Burrow.

Unfortunately, however, Tagovailoa’s status for the game seems to be a little up in the air. He suffered a back injury in Sunday’s win over the Buffalo Bills, and head coach Mike McDaniel was noncommittal about his quarterback’s availability.

Given what fans know about Tagovailoa, the University of Alabama product will likely do everything in his power to play on Thursday.