As quarterback Tua Tagovailoa heads into the final season of his rookie contract, he and the Miami Dolphins are negotiating a potential new contract that would keep him with the team. But it doesn’t sound like those contract negotiations are going all that well as the Dolphins do not seem willing to pay Tagovailoa what he believes he’s worth.
According to NFL insider Jeff Darlington of ESPN, the contract negotiations are now “complicated” between Tua Tagovailoa and the Miami Dolphins as the team is simply not offering Tagovailoa the money that he thinks he is worth on the market.
“This is complicated,” Darlington said during an appearance on NFL Live. “I’ve been long optimistic about Tua Tagovailoa getting this deal done. I’m not saying that it won’t get done, because these things generally happen. But right now, there’s five words that are looming over this contract negotiation. And they’re the words that came out of Tua’s mouth: ‘The market is the market.’ He said that after Jared Goff had signed his deal and before Trevor Lawrence signed his.”
So on @ESPNNFLLIVE @JeffDarlington seemed a little pessimistic that the Tua deal will get done at “market price.”
I’ve long said #Dolphins are dug into their position that they will not pay Tua a Goff-esque contract rate. pic.twitter.com/yo6bqCVmif
— Omar Kelly (@OmarKelly) June 25, 2024
Darlington reports that while Tagovailoa desires a market-value contract, the Dolphins are not offering him that right now.
“Right now, the Dolphins are not offering a contract that is the market value based on those other deals that were done. So if it gets there, it’s just going to require more negotiations,” Darlington said. “And we’re not to panic point just yet, I just think that my optimism earlier has to be slightly scaled back at this point given all of those factors currently in play.”
Darlington then clarified that this means the Dolphins are not offering him a contract that’s comparable to Goff or Trevor Lawrence.
“Based on my conversations, they are not in the Jared Goff and Trevor Lawrence ballpark,” Darlington said. “And that to me speaks volumes about where the negotiations are right now.”
Needless to say, this is not a great situation for Tagovailoa. We’ll have to see how these negotiations play out.
