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The play in Miami Gardens, Florida, but this season it might as well be Tuscaloosa, Alabama. On the field, for , that is.Given how Joe Colborne Jersey productive and efficient Tagovailoa was before entering the , attempting to recreate his collegiate environment was worth the difficulty in doing so.And because the Tuscaloosaian transformation for Tagovailoa's NFL surroundings wasn't easy, naturally it wasn't a one-man lift. It started with Dolphins GM Chris Grier, who first was brazen enough to hire a then 38-year-old first-time head coach with undeniable quirks and a penchant for dry humor.Then, in a two-day stretch, Grier signed stud left tackle to a monster deal and traded for to pair with 2021 first-round pick, . By the end of March, to Tagovailoa, the Nicolas Meloche Jersey Dolphins orange probably started to take on a more crimson hue. But the metamorphosis would only be theoretical until the games were played, when Rob Ramage Jersey McDaniel would be put to the test as a play-caller.And nine games into the 2022 season, McDaniel's offense has been a mash-up of the attacks Brian Daboll, Mike Locksley and Steve Sarkisian deployed for Tagovailoa during his three seasons with the Tide.Check how strikingly similar the Dolphins' 2022 tendencies are to what the one-time Heisman Francois Beauchemin Jersey Trophy runner-up experienced in college. Avg depth of targetAvg time to throwPlay-action rate% of pa ses thrown in under 2.5 secondsCareer at Alabama9.8 yards2.71 seconds43%48.8%2022 with Dolphins9.7 yards2.54 seconds45%52.8%What's even more, at Alabama, while throwing to four future first-rounders (and one second-rounder) at receiver and an eventual Round 2 tight end, 15.9% of Tagovailoa's attempts were 20-plus yards down the field. With the Dolphins in 2022, Gabriel Landeskog Jersey his deep-ball percentage is 13%, the sixth-highest in football among quarterbacks who've thrown at least 200 pa ses to date.I scoured the film from Tagovailoa's final season with the Crimson Tide and compared it with what Miami's done offensively this season. And it's not as if McDaniel has copy and pasted the Alabama Ben Smith Jersey playbook. But the general ideologies match.Miami even mimicked Alabama-esque offensive line play. Remember, the Dolphins' shoddy blocking unit was one of the key reasons many believed Tagovailoa would never take off in the NFL.Tagovailoa was pre sured on 24.3% of his drop backs with the Crimson Tide. Entering Week 10, his pre sure rate is 22.5% with the Dolphins. Amazing.Oh by the way, Tagovailoa has aligned with the Tide mutation Jarome Iginla Jersey in Miami. In 2018, the season that sparked the #TankForTua campaign, he completed 69% of his pa ses at an unprecedented 11.2 yards per attempt at Alabama. Right now, Tagovailoa's completing 69.9% of his throws at a league-leading 9.2 yards per attempt.Given the presence of the salary cap and the intense parity in the NFL, it'd be impo sible for any team to recreate the talent advantages Tagovailoa had at Alabama.But the Dolphins set out to get as close as organizationally po sible at the profe Paul Kariya Jersey sional level and have succeeded in that endeavor. Their achievement has unlocked Alabama Tua. |
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