The message reached Mike McDaniel from Steve Young in early spring, 2022.
When you coach Tua Tagovailoa, make sure he feels his left-handedness is an advantage, not a flaw or annoyance.
In 2005, Young became the first left-handed quarterback selected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He is one of only 33 to have ever played in the NFL. Tagovailoa became No. 32 in 2020 when the Miami Dolphins drafted him fifth overall.
When McDaniel took over as Miami’s head coach two years later, he’d never considered what it would be like to coach a lefty — but he did know that Tagovailoa’s overall confidence was shot. The quarterback later revealed that during the depth of his struggles over his first two NFL seasons, he used to look at himself in the mirror and ask, “Do I suck?”
So McDaniel put together a reel that spanned hundreds of Tagovailoa’s plays from practices and games, clipping together throws and decisions he believed could help eliminate negative self-talk from his quarterback. “It was in the process of making the tape for Tua, to present to him ‘this isn’t just lip service,’ to present to him why he is extraordinary and what I’m excited about,” McDaniel told The Athletic this spring, that he noticed something. Tagovailoa’s handedness kept tripping him up.
As McDaniel cut together clip after clip, he began to focus on Tagovailoa’s mechanics instead of the result of the throws, and somewhere in the middle of the film he eventually presented to the quarterback, it clicked. It was as if he were watching Tagovailoa through a mirror — he could see him throw the way he could see right-handed quarterbacks throw.
McDaniel began to daydream. If the coach felt his own brain hesitate ever-so-slightly over the left-handed delivery, would defenders feel the same? Could play formations, blocking, and route combinations all accentuate a lefty? Was there a way to turn a visual anomaly into a schematic advantage?
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Young knew what McDaniel knows now: Understanding how Tagovailoa throws could allow McDaniel to design an offense that takes advantage of how the ball comes out of his quarterback’s hand. It could also be a way for McDaniel to show Tagovailoa: I like you for you.
“What Steve learned is that (being left-handed) felt more like an inconvenience to all parties involved while he was playing, which didn’t help his confidence,” said McDaniel. “He was big on, ‘no, this is a resource, tool or competitive advantage,’ seeing it through that lens.
“Not only was it good advice to approach things with Tua like that, but it was factual.”
A few things naturally change for an offense if the quarterback is left-handed. Some of that irritates teams to the point that many have historically avoided lefties altogether.
For example, a quarterback’s “blind side” (the side of the field he turns his back to during a dropback) switches from the left to the right. The right tackle becomes the blind-side protector on passing plays instead of the left tackle.
Austin Jackson played left tackle after being drafted with Miami’s second first-round pick in 2020 but moved to the right side when McDaniel took over as head coach. “Your mechanics literally change (to) opposite legs,” Jackson said. “My left leg had to become my push leg, my right leg had to become my ‘catch/anchor’ leg that kind of keeps my balance.”
As he made the change, Jackson’s right leg was significantly stronger than his left. His left hip was strong but way tighter. The Dolphins’ strength-and-conditioning staff installed special programming to rebuild both hips and legs for his new role.
Pass catchers also have to adjust to a southpaw thrower. The ball spins the opposite direction — counter-clockwise — coming out of a left-handed quarterback’s hand, and some receivers have said the spin feels strange and takes some getting used to. Some left-handers’ throws can tend to fishtail at the end of deeper balls, though velocity helps dull the difference. Dolphins coaches and receivers say Tagovailoa doesn’t have that issue.
“It makes it a lot easier to live in a left-handed world when your quarterback has enough pronation, enough spin, that no one even notices,” McDaniel said.
Two years after a head-coaching change altered his career trajectory, Tua Tagovailoa signed a $212 million extension with the Dolphins this July. (Megan Briggs / Getty Images)