Tua Tagovailoa and Dak Prescott sit as two massive remaining questions surrounding the NFL zeitgeist. Both the Miami Dolphins and Dallas Cowboys are seemingly on the precipice of new megadeals with their respective quarterbacks. However, both teams also appear to be taking the slow road.
With seemingly more momentum on the Dolphins’ side of things, one NFL insider explained the status of talks between Tagovailoa and his team.
Dolphins insider Cameron Wolfe recently explained the status of the negotiations. Essentially, he said that the quarterback had claimed he was “antsy” to get a deal done.
It is allegedly the Dolphins’ “Number One” priority to be working on getting the deal done. There remains hope for the Dolphina and Tagovailoa to reach an agreement before the start of the regular season.
Miami Dolphins teeter toward painful Dak Prescott timeline
It sounds like a deal isn’t coming tomorrow. That said, it also appears that negotiations are not heading toward the infamous Lamar Jackson track.
As Jackson has demonstrated, negotiations between quarterbacks and their teams can take years, depending on how close both sides are.
The negotiation for Prescott’s second contract might serve as a better precedent for Tagovailoa in how things can go awry.
According to Spotrac, Prescott played on a rookie deal from 2016-2019. After that, however, things got dicey. Prescott was ultimately franchise-tagged over the course of the negotiation. Then, ahead of the 2021 season, the quarterback received his extension nearly two years after playing the final snap of his rookie deal.
The Dolphins have already sunk quite a bit into Tagovailoa. They took him with the fifth overall pick of the 2020 NFL Draft. They also spent two seasons easing him into the rigors of the NFL before he finally broke out in 2022. Now, if the team finds itself unwilling to go all-in, it raises questions about sunk costs.
If Miami takes much longer to sign the quarterback and negotiations do run into the regular season, comparisons to Prescott’s situation in 2019 might begin to run rampant.
Will Tua Tagovailoa and Dolphins amicably reach a deal before creating any drama?
