Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is set to enter the final year of his rookie contract. Miami picked up the $23.17 million option on his deal for the 2024 season.
The backdrop here includes Tua and his Dolphins being involved in contract extension talks since the 2023 campaign came to a conclusion.
Things have been taken to a new level recently with Tagovailoa opting against taking part in practices during mandatory minicamp. The former first-round pick from Alabama just recently expanded on how talks are going and why he removed himself from the practice field.
“I’ll tell you one thing, the market is the market,” Tua Tagovailoa said, via the Miami Herald. “If we didn’t have a market, then none of that would matter. [It would] just be an organizational thing, you know. Didn’t matter if that guy got paid, that because it’s up to the organization. So that’s what I would say. The market is the market. That’s it.”
While things are seemingly getting ugly between Tua and his Dolphins, the quarterback indicates that progress has been made in contract talks this offseason.
“Well, I think there’s been a lot of progress at this point,” Tagovailoa said, via Adam Beasley of Pro Football Talk. “From where we started, there’s been a lot of progress. Now, you can ask the other question — then why aren’t we seeing an agreement? Well, that’s the tough part about it. That’s why it’s business. That’s why you’ve got one side and the other trying to work to meet in the middle.”
Related: Find out where Tua Tagovailoa ranks among NFL starting QBs
What a Tua Tagovailoa contract extension with the Miami Dolphins would look like
It was earlier this offseason that Detroit Lions star Jared Goff became the second highest-paid quarterback in the NFL.
Goff inked a four-year, $212 million extension with the Lions. His $53 million average annual salary is second to only Joe Burrow and his $55 million on a per-year basis among NFL players.
Tua bringing up how the market is dictating contract talks tells us a story of him being fully aware of what Goff earned from the Lions. It seems as if $53 million per season is the starting-off point here.