Tua or Deshaun Watson? Why the Miami Dolphins’ monumental choice is anything but simple | Opinion

Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, general manager Chris Grier and coach Brian Flores are seated in a room, trying to see the future. Trying to chart a path.

NFL free agency starts March 17. Less than six weeks later is the draft. Most offseasons, those are the two superhighways you travel in building your roster. Improving your team.

This offseason, the Dolphins front office faces a bigger decision, of course.

The biggest of their professional lives.

The biggest in the 56-year history of Miami’s flagship sports franchise.

It is Tua Tagovailoa or Deshaun Watson, and nothing at all about that choice is simple.

Stick with Tagovailoa and use free agency and the draft to surround him with talent and you have passed on the once-in-a-lifetime chance to trade for a proven, elite quarterback just coming into his prime.

Trade for Watson and you have both gutted your draft capital for perhaps years to come and also given up on the great promise of player you just used a top-five pick to draft.

Ah, but the choice is even more complicated than that, and strewn with possibilities Ross, Grier and Flores must consider when deciding how to move forward.

Miami going all in on a trade for Watson would also prevent the AFC East’s New York Jets, another reported leading suitor, from getting him. Going all in on Tagovailoa might significantly increase the possibility Jets would get him.

If that thought has occurred to the Jets as well, a bidding war between AFC East rivals could make the price for Watson that much steeper.

How far would the Dolphins go to avoid facing four games a year vs. rising star Josh Allen in Buffalo and Watson in Jets colors? (And you know Bill Belichick is going to do something major to make sure the Patriots improve on the failed Cam Newton experiment).

ESPN NFL Insider Mike Tannebaum, the former Jets and Dolphins executive, told us: “If you’re the Jets or the Dolphins, its bad if [Watson is] traded and you don’t get him. It’s catastrophic if he’s traded within the division and you don’t get him.”

In other words, the Dolphins need a great quarterback, whether that means acquiring Watson at great and possibly crippling cost ... or sticking with Tagovailoa and essentially going all in on a hand they can’t be certain will be aces or jacks.

ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. opined the other day, “I would give up whatever it took to get Deshaun Watson.” The network’s Jeremy Fowler reported that one general manager told him he expects an NFL team to offer its entire draft, every pick, to Houston.

Respected football writer Peter King speculated to get Watson Miami might have to give up Tagovailoa, defensive tackle Christian Wilkins, this year’s No. 3 overall and second-round picks, a second-rounder in 2022 and a first-rounder in ’23. (Others have guessed a third first-round pick might be involved).

We’re not done with the complications and possibilities that must be weighed.

What if: In a trade with Houston for Watson, the Texans don’t want Tagovailoa as part of the deal because they plan to use the No. 3 overall pick obtained from Miami to take as QB they like more, say Zach Wilson of Brigham Young, Justin Fields of Ohio State or Alabama’s Mac Jones? (What if the Texans said we don’t want Tagovailoa but give us cornerback Xavien Howard instead).

And what if: Houston remains adamant in not obliging Watson’s trade demand but Miami in turn hedges on its publicly stated faith in Tagovailoa by then using the third overall pick on April 29 to draft another QB.

Likely? Nah. But a possibility? We can’t know how Dolphins brass really feels about Tagovailoa’s future, or how high they might be on this draft’s bounty of top QBs.

And there is precedent for selecting a QB in the top 10 of consecutive drafts.

The Dolphins themselves did it in 1966-67, taking a bust in Rick Norton and then a Hall of Famer the next year in Bob Griese. The Baltimore Colts did it in 1982-83, drafting Art Schlichter one year then and John Elway (who forced a trade to Denver). And the Arizona Cardinals did it just recently, in 2018-19, with Josh Rosen and then Kyler Murray.

How will it all shake out?

The question is out front in the minds of many South Florida fans, even as the Heat is hot, Marlins spring games have begun, the Panthers are off to a great start, the football Canes are near spring practice.

And the answer will be the story of this NFL offseason.

“It has a chance to be the biggest story of the next five years,” Tannebaum said. “It could lead to transformational change in moving to the NBA model of player-driven movement. We’d be looking at a new era.”

I asked Tannenbaum to predict how this will play out for the Dolphins — and I agree with his best guess: “What I think they’re going to do is stick to that conviction. ‘We believe in our process in the spring of 2020. We’re gonna build on those attributes, get [Tagovailoa] healthier and stronger and build on those attributes’.”

Tagovailoa admitted recently to ESPN that he “would describe my rookie season as below average.” Between the pandemic and coming off major hip surgery, though, he got a pass of sorts.

No such benefit of doubt will await him in Year 2. Potential must turn to proof, and it may be unfair but this is his reality now:

If the Dolphins are all in on Tagoaviloa, he will spend his career being compared with fellow rookies Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow ... and with Deshaun Watson.