I can't remember even seeing Brady, Manning, Brees etc getting ripped for the upcoming season. Tua's game isn't mobility and it never will be but if he is lean enough he will try and scramble, he just can't help himself.
I'm not saying he should go and eat donuts for 6 months but if being 10lb heavier means he's going to throw the ball away rather than dive head first into a defender then I'm all for him putting on 10lb.
I sure hope that getting fat isn't a proxy for staying healthy.
Let's look at reality. Tua ran 2x as much early in his career. He was a shrimp in '20 as a rookie and essentially only added some strength in '21. He ran 3x per game about ~3ypc back then which is barely anything but the point is he was at his lightest and it was fine. He did however contribute 1 rushing TD every 4 games.
Was he an "injury risk" back then?
The only major injury was the broken ribs in '21 which occurred as the result of an unexpected hit in the pocket when an unblocked defender slammed him (thanks Jesse Davis!).
Under McDaniel he's run 1-2x per game for virtually nothing...and he's had 0 rushing TDs in 3 seasons. His immobility has become a bit of an issue, too, leaving him increasingly defenseless, even in the pocket.
I think you have to bite the bullet with Tua. He needs to slim down in order to be mobile because that agility should result in
fewer devastating hits, not more.
Ball-carriers stay healthy by (1) out-running defenders to avoid would-be hits and (2) being careful to protect their vitals when contact is imminent. At his absolutely lightest, when running the most, Tua had no issue staying healthy. The concussions started as a result of hits
in the pocket. And the concussion in '24 was a result of charging headlong into a defender which is just stupid.
I'm with
@djphinfan in the sense that there is absolutely no correlation between ball-carriers getting fat and it being productive. Tua's playing 17 games in '23 had nothing to do with being fat and everything to do with avoiding contact.
WADR here--and I love you as a poster--Tua having to get fat so he's less willing to run is an utterly absurd paradigm. It's unworkable. If he's not smart enough to stay healthy, I'd prefer to have McDaniel just insert and work with a back-up. You can't have Tua diving headlong into people. He doesn't deserve the job for a single day if he can't understand that.
If indeed we're having Tua bulk up again, it's a virtual certainty to me that he's done in Miami as early as the front office can reasonably kick him to the curb.
If being healthy and mobile is bad...it's an existential problem and he needs to go.
