Tua Makes Pitch to Play Against Raiders (And He Should)

Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is hoping to make his 2022 preseason debut against the Las Vegas Raiders on Saturday

As he did last week, head coach Mike McDaniel will not be announcing his personnel plans to the media for the preseason matchup against the Las Vegas Raiders until game day.

Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa hopes those plans include having him in the starting lineup after he sat out the opener against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

"Man, I always want to play," Tua said after practice Wednesday. "I'm gonna be honest, I wanted to play last week too, at least a couple of snaps. But Mike decided that then wasn't the time. So hopefully he gives the first offense an opportunity to go out there, hopefully get some plays in, understand some situations, knowing how to manage the game, and kind of get back into the groove of things."

The decision of whether to play a quarterback or other front-line starters in the preseason always is a tricky one for head coaches, who want to balance getting their players as ready as possible for the start of the regular season while trying to safeguard against potential injuries.

For the preseason opener against the Buccaneers, McDaniel more than a dozen starters along with Tua, such as Tyreek Hill, Terron Armstead and Xavien Howard.

That decision wasn't revealed until about 90 minutes before kickoffs, which is the same scenario we might be facing this week after McDaniel was asked in his final press conference of the week Thursday if there were any announcements he wanted to make.

"I’m still working through it," he said. "And again, as transparent as possible, I think I really, in an annoying manner, I don’t like to shortchange individual practices. I think that deciding everyone’s playing time based upon where they’re at for this team, for our young team, I think that doesn’t do right or justice to the individual practices. So we’ll be working through that and it will probably be about the same timeline that I’ll know as it was last week, unfortunately.”

WHY TUA SHOULD PLAY AGAINST LAS VEGAS

In talking about Tua last week, McDaniel suggested that his performance in practice to that point might make him lean toward not using him against Tampa Bay.

Based on that criteria, Tagovailoa definitely should play against the Raiders.

In the two practices since the preseason opener, Tagovailoa threw five interceptions and, even for those who want to minimize that number because of "drill situations," he misfired on several other throws.

To be blunt, Tagovailoa just simply hasn't been sharp in practice this week.

Let's also remember that McDaniel said during the joint practices in Tampa that Tagovailoa more likely than not would see action in the preseason.

With an offense with so many new parts, not to mention a new scheme, it certainly would make sense to have the first-team offense playing together at least some snaps in the preseason, and the Raiders game is a logical place to start.

Tagovailoa started the first two preseason games last year, playing the entire first half in the second game against the Atlanta Falcons when he looked really sharp.

While watching from the sideline, Tagovailoa said he was impressed by rookie seventh-round pick Skylar Thompson's performance against Tampa Bay after he went 20-for-28 for 218 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions.

"I think Skylar did a great job with his operation being that he's a rookie," Thompson said. "I mean, you gotta give credit to him. It's not easy to go in there, understand where everyone needs to go, understanding how to manage the situation, the game clock, the down and distance. So I thought Skylar did a really good job."