Cam Newton doesn’t see Tua ever bouncing back: ‘I wanna be wrong’

Former NFL MVP Cam Newton doesn’t believe that Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa will be able to bounce back in his NFL career.

Tagovailoa, a first-round pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, is coming off one of his worst seasons in the NFL, as he threw 15 interceptions and was eventually benched down the stretch of the season for seventh-round pick Quinn Ewers.

Even though Tagovailoa has played at a high level before, Newton believes some of the head injuries that the quarterback has suffered could hamper his ability to play at a high level again.

“No, I just don’t,” Newton said when asked if he sees Tagovailoa ever bouncing back. “I would like to see it. I wanna be wrong. But no. People forget those were probably the most gruesome head injuries that we witnessed live on television. What came from those hits was like, ‘Yo, what’s wrong with his fingers? Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.’ Then he came back, and then that happened again.

“So, there’s a sports phrase of like the yips, where it typically happens to kickers, pitchers and quarterbacks. It’s all mental. It can happen in basketball where shooters just lose the skill to shoot. And I see a guy like Tua Tagovailoa, extremely talented, but it’s traumatic what he went through mentally.

“And factor in the pressure of an organization that is mounting with disappointment, from the Tyreek Hill situation to the Mike McDaniel situation to just everybody pointing the finger and pointing the blame back at him.”

Tagovailoa has suffered multiple head injuries in his NFL career, and there’s no doubt that he’s taken a step back from his peak as a player.

In the 2024 campaign, Tagovailoa appeared in 11 games, and while he completed an NFL-best 72.9 percent of his passes, the Dolphins went just 6-5 in his starts and ended up missing the playoffs. His availability issues were a major problem.

Then, in the 2025 season, Miami posted a losing record (6-8) in Tagovailoa’s 14 starts, and the University of Alabama product threw for 2,660 yards, 20 scores and 15 picks in those games. He also saw his completion percentage drop to 67.7, over five percent worse than it was the 2024 season.

After making the Pro Bowl in the 2023 season, Tagovailoa hasn’t been the same player often enough, as the Dolphins have gone 12-13 in his starts and are on the heels of back-to-back sub-.500 seasons.

That led to the franchise firing McDaniel, and it now appears that Tagovailoa’s days in Miami could be numbered as well. The No. 5 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft may not get released due to the high dead cap number attached to his contract, but there’s a chance Miami doesn’t make him the starting quarterback in the 2026 season.

Newton could be wrong about Tagovailoa, but he makes an interesting point about the lefty having dealt with a traumatic number of injuries in his career. Since Newton played the quarterback position, he knows what it feels like to take hits time and time again in the pocket.

It’ll be interesting to see if Tagovailoa can rejuvenate his career after a poor 2025 season, whether it is in Miami or with another team in the future.