{"id":795945,"date":"2026-07-12T18:05:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T18:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/795945\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T18:05:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T18:05:33","slug":"dolphins-patrick-paul-tua-tagovailoa-definitely-going-to-win-falcons-starting-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/795945\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolphins&#8217; Patrick Paul: Tua Tagovailoa &#8216;definitely going to win&#8217; Falcons starting job"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The NFL passing champion and a Pro Bowler in 2023, Tagovailoa and head coach Mike McDaniel seemed like a stellar union. However, things spiraled over the past two years for Miami. Among them, Tagovailoa&#8217;s injuries mounted and his play waned.<\/p>\n<p>In 2025, he threw for a career-worst 15 interceptions despite playing in only 14 games due to a benching down the stretch by McDaniel, who&#8217;s now moved on as well and is the Los Angeles Chargers offensive coordinator.<\/p>\n<p>Tagovailoa was released this offseason, presenting new general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan with a staggering $99.2 million in dead money \u2013 the wrong kind of NFL record.<\/p>\n<p>As the Dolphins are rebuilding, Paul hasn&#8217;t changed his view of Tagovailoa after playing with him the past two seasons.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I know he&#8217;s going to bounce back from what was last year, and he&#8217;s going to do his thing over there,&#8221; Paul said. &#8220;So, I&#8217;m waiting to see it. Waiting to see his bounce back. For sure. It&#8217;s all it is. That&#8217;s all it is. It&#8217;s just a bounce back. Yeah.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Paul&#8217;s also a fan of his new quarterback, <a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" style=\"word-break:break-word\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/players\/malik-willis\/\" title=\"Malik Willis\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Malik Willis<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Seemingly a bust with the Tennessee Titans, Willis rewrote the narrative on his career over the past couple years with the Green Bay Packers. He became one of the <a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/news\/top-101-nfl-free-agents-of-2026-who-are-the-best-players-available\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">top free agents<\/a> this past offseason and <a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/news\/malik-willis-dolphins-three-year-67-million-contract\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">joined<\/a> the Dolphins.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Malik, no doubt that he&#8217;s a baller,&#8221; Paul said, &#8220;and I think it&#8217;s one of the best kept secrets in the NFL right now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Confident with his predictions, Paul thinks it will be a &#8220;big surprise to everybody what he does this year.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Paul, Willis and a largely remade roster are not picked by most to be winners in 2026, but the offensive tackle thinks Miami will shake things up.<\/p>\n<p>Said Paul: &#8220;Just expect a team that&#8217;s going to go out there and shock people.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NFL passing champion and a Pro Bowler in 2023, Tagovailoa and head coach Mike McDaniel seemed like&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[37242,1276,64,63,1233,44,593,19976,272294,85,5379],"class_list":["post-795945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-around-the-nfl","tag-atlanta-falcons","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-miami-dolphins","tag-news","tag-nfl","tag-no-minute","tag-patrick-paul","tag-sports","tag-tua-tagovailoa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}