Rich: Don’t Be Too Harsh about Tua Tagovailoa’s “Brutal” Atlanta Falcons Preseason Debut

Tua Tagovailoa looked terrible in his first look with the Atlanta Falcons. No sugar coating available. The Falcons looked terrible around him too.

The evidence is short because his night was short. He dropped the second snap. On the second possession he found Kyle Pitts on first down and then it was three and out. Eight snaps, see you later, and it was brutal.

Context matters, and there is a decent amount of it. Drake London was not out there. Bijan Robinson was not out there. Jonathan Cooper and Nik Bonitto were coming in unblocked, and Sean Payton played a whole bunch of ones for a Denver team that came in salty, with the former Saints head coach looking very much like a man ready to teach the Falcons a lesson. The Broncos hit Courtland Sutton on a 40-yarder to set up a gimme touchdown, RJ Harvey got involved, and they looked the part all night. Payton also spent part of the evening cracking on the empty seats, joking that some of the fans were dressed as empty seats.

Tagovailoa did not hide behind any of it.

"Definitely not up to standard, not even up to par," he said. "We'll start with the first drive. Second play, just being able to catch the snap, little things like that. What we put out there is not a reflection of the hard work that we've put in the first two weeks into training camp, and it does no justice for the work that our coaches have implemented. So it starts with me. I got to be better with that. I thought off of that play we kind of got out of the rhythm. I think we could have had a pretty decent play off of a screen going to B-Rob and then getting everything going from there."

Accountability is great to hear. Miami Dolphins fans will tell you they heard a lot of it.

Here is why Rich is not going overboard. Two possessions do not make an evaluation, and the guy who accounts for something like 40 percent of this offense was standing on the sideline in street clothes. Bijan Robinson is the engine, an All-Pro, the offensive player of the year front runner and an MVP candidate. Put him and London on the field next to Tagovailoa and the picture changes.

Stefanski gave the standard answer afterward, that they will coach it better and do it better. That will get tested in a hurry, because the next trip is Pittsburgh, where TJ Watt and Cameron Heyward are coming the way Cooper and Bonitto came on the play where Tagovailoa had to throw it into the dirt just to avoid getting smoked. That was his last snap of the night, which was a strange place to end it.

The bet the Falcons made is not complicated. Tagovailoa can play quick. If he plays quick and hits people who are schemed open, this can be good. Three years ago he threw for 4,600 yards and led the league in passing, and the year before that he led the league in quarterback rating. There is a good player in there.

Availability is the question underneath every snap, and everyone knows it, including him. That is the danger in hiring him and starting him. It is also why Michael Penix pointing at him has already become a meme, with everyone deciding it means something it almost certainly does not.

Nobody is flopping yet. It was two series. It was also brutal.