Tua was 13-8 (61.9%) starting for Flores as a rookie or 2nd player player on one of the youngest rebuild franchises.
Tua is 25-16 (60.9%) starting for McDaniel as a 3rd to 5th year veteran trading nearly 2 drafts for veterans on win-now deals.
I had to do a little research after reading this. Great little nugget there!
Check this out. I looked at Tua's passer ratings under both HCs:
Flores
W - 96.9
L - 76.7
McDaniel
W - 111.9
L - 85.1
So, we can definitely say that the passing game was more efficient under McDaniel, both in the wins (which were way better) and in the losses. Unfortunately, I cannot say exactly how these bumps in passer rating correlate with win%. I would guess both are appreciable...even the 8-points in the losses.
Here's what I noticed that scared me...
#1
Tua has never had a season where his passer rating didn't dip in the final weeks. I looked at as many (regular season) games as I could from December thru early January and noticed the following:
2020: 7 point drop in passer rating
2021: 12 point drop in passer rating
2022: 23 point drop in passer rating
2023: 13 point drop in passer rating
2024: 15 point drop in passer rating
Flores years:
9.5-point drop in passer rating at the end of the season. This is a drop of ~10%.
McDaniel years:
17.1-point drop in passer rating at the end of the season. This is a drop of ~17%.
I know there are a lot of narratives about teammates being injured but this is every single season for 5 years in a row! This does not speak to a guy who's game can elevate on the biggest stage.
#2
Tua has a career rating of ~98 against both the Jets and Pats. That's roughly 87 during the Flores era and 105 during the McDaniel era. He's always been at or above his seasonal average against the Jets and Pats.
That makes sense since neither team is particularly good.
Unfortunately, there has always been a marked drop against the Bills. This is independent of whether we're looking at the Flores or McDaniel data. Tua's just worse against the Bills, often to the point of being really bad:
Career vs Bills: 80 rating....that's 18 points lower than his career rating!
Flores era: 60 (a drop of roughly 33%)
McDaniel era: 95 (a drop of roughly 7%)
While that doesn't look too bad in the McDaniel era, it still confirms that Tua is repeatedly struggling against our biggest adversary. Moreover, Tua's Buffalo numbers in the McDaniel era are heavily bolstered by the 2022 data where his ratings were actually great versus Buffalo. However, over the last couple of years his ratings against Buffalo aren't great: 93, 63, 57, 125.
Point is, he's too often playing expressly
bad football against Buffalo. Now, this may be in line with the rest of the NFL...Buffalo
does have a good defense!
In any case, I think he's got to find a way to eliminate those expressly
awful games and turn them into something more respectable. He's not the only reason we're losing to Buffalo but he's not always helping. It's getting to the point where I think Buffalo looks forward to playing Miami largely because they kind of do well against Tua...
...that's not good.