We are witnessing the end of Tua Tagovailoa (and the grossest QBs of Week 7)

Week 7 was an opportunity for the Miami Dolphins. A road trip to Ohio brought a matchup with the 1-5 Cleveland Browns. If Tua Tagovailoa could outduel a third-round rookie who'd been the NFL's worst starting quarterback in his limited reps this fall, he could rebuild some goodwill in a lost season. The Dolphins have generally looked like the football gods spilled a team, but a big game from Tagovailoa against a swarming Browns defense could restore optimism in south Florida.

That was not what happened. Tagovailoa was a disaster. He needed 23 passes to throw for 100 yards. He threw three interceptions for the second straight week. He was eventually replaced by Quinn Ewers, a rookie seventh round pick who'd never played a regular season game before Sunday. Ewers' 81.8 passer rating in garbage time was more than three times higher than the man he replaced.

Stop and score all in one 🤩#MIAvsCLE on CBS and NFL+ pic.twitter.com/zd51fr9rVn

— Cleveland Browns (@Browns) October 19, 2025

Tagovailoa's 25 dropbacks gained a net 87 yards. His offense scored three points in nine drives. Five of those drives lasted three plays or fewer. Nearly half his completions came behind the line of scrimmage. Two of his interceptions led directly to 14 Cleveland points.

Browns defense came to play today 😤

MIAvsCLE on CBS/Paramount+https://t.co/HkKw7uXVntpic.twitter.com/eeK2XDS0ww

— NFL (@NFL) October 19, 2025

Tagovailoa has been limited by injury -- not his own but to 31-year-old wideout Tyreek Hill -- and an offensive line that's forced him to face more pressure in 2025 than any other season as a pro. But he's also been a big ol' sloppy mess. He's playing his worst football since a 2020 rookie campaign and is on pace to throw 27 interceptions over the course of 17 games (his previous career high is 14). He's been hamstrung by a depleted supporting cast but his 16.9 percent bad throw rate was nearing a personal worst even before playing like complete garbage in Cleveland.

Even if he gets back on track, we understand Tagovailoa's ceiling. He's a lovely fantasy option who can put up big numbers in a way that doesn't matter. He's a perpetual injury risk who has made a single playoff appearance and was a disaster for roughly 59 minutes of it. That's the man to whom Miami owes $54 million guaranteed and will likely be unable to rid itself of before 2027.

The Dolphins' only way out is through. Its best hope for salvation is sticking with Tagovailoa in hopes his sunk cost can turn into something of value for a quarterback-needy team in 2026 while potentially grooming his successor behind him. That seems like a sucker's bet considering how much Tyreek Hill -- past his best by: date and coming off a catastrophic knee injury -- meant to Tagovailoa's production. But Miami has little other choice.

2025 is a lost season. 2026 may be as well, even after a presumptive firing of Mike McDaniel (who will do a bang-up job as Philadelphia Eagles' offensive coordinator next year). But if Tagovailoa can do enough to convince someone to trade a mid-round draft pick while lightening the burden on the Dolphins' salary cap, that could be enough of a victory to jump start Miami's rebuild.

Anyway, let's talk about the other quarterbacks who stunk this week. To get a better idea of who performed best relative to expectations in Week 7, I've compared every starting quarterback's expected points added (EPA, found here in real time thanks to some exceptional work from The Athletic's Ben Baldwin) to their 2025 average. The players who sunk below their own standard the hardest? They're the ones who get written about. Sure, Cam Ward stunk in Week 7. But he also stunk most of the six weeks that preceded it, so he fails to make the cut.

But before we dig into the passing schadenfreude, let's talk about the quarterbacks who exceeded their standard in Week 7. We're led for the second straight week by Joe Flacco, who is proof football is pretty easy when you have multiple All-Pro caliber wideouts to throw to on a regular basis.

Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs

• 2025 EPA/game: 6.8
• Week 7 EPA: 18.3 (in three quarters!)
• Difference: 11.5 points better

Matthew Stafford, Los Angeles Rams

• 2025 EPA/game: 5.0
• Week 7 EPA: 17.4
• Difference: 12.4 points better

Jaxson Dart, New York Giants

• 2025 EPA/game: -1.5
• Week 7 EPA: 18.1
• Difference: 19.6 points better

Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles

• 2025 EPA/game: -2.2
• Week 7 EPA: 20.3
• Difference: 22.5 points better

Joe Flacco, Cincinnati Bengals

• 2025 EPA/game: -9.1
• Week 7 EPA: 19.7
• Difference: 28.8 points better

Now let's look at the guys who couldn't live up to even the slightest expectations.

4. Jayden Daniels, Washington Commanders

• 2025 EPA/game: 2.3
• Week 7 EPA: -2.9
• Difference: 5.2 points worse

Daniels left Sunday's loss to the Dallas Cowboys early in the third quarter after twisting awkwardly while taking a hit and grabbing at his hamstring. That prevented him from evening out an up-and-down performance that ultimately dropped Washington to 3-4 in its quest to repeat last year's surprising success.

Daniels had 12 completions before leaving Sunday's game. That included this too-easy toss to Zach Ertz.

That was one of the 11 aforementioned completions that went to the right side of the field. Per RBSDM.com, he completed only one of seven attempts to the left and in the middle of the field. Part of that is what you'd expect from a mobile right handed quarterback running to his strong hand. But it's also a plan that gets easy to stop once you see it a couple dozen times.

Opponents have blitzed Washington less this fall in respect to Daniels' exceptional play as a rookie. But he's been a bit of a mess when confronted with extra rushers; his EPA per dropback slips from 0.17 to -0.19 when blitzed. That's what created the havoc that knocked the second-year QB out of the game while forcing a fumble that led to a Cowboys touchdown.

Shemar knocks it loose! 🥊

📺: #WASvsDAL on FOX 
📲: Stream on NFL+ https://t.co/RmDxAeCG4Mpic.twitter.com/jBd1210bXo

— Dallas Cowboys (@dallascowboys) October 19, 2025

That's an issue that will only be compounded if Daniels has a nagging injury that limits his escapeability. His scrambles per game have increased since 2024 (from 4.3 to 5.5) but his yards per scramble are down, perhaps owing to the lower leg injury that kept him off the field for two games earlier in the season. The Commanders still have plenty to play for this season. But after running other prospective franchise quarterbacks either into the ground or out of town, there's good reason to play things safe and get Daniels back to a place where he's comfortable finding holes against the blitz.

3. Geno Smith, Las Vegas Raiders

• 2025 EPA/game: -3.2
• Week 7 EPA: -12.6
• Difference: 9.4 points worse

It's officially time to worry about Geno Smith. The quarterback who'd been one of the league's most accurate passers the last three seasons is struggling. The Raiders haven't surrounded him with talent -- especially with Brock Bowers limited to only four games this fall. Las Vegas was also without Jakobi Meyers in Kansas City, leaving Smith's top targets as Tre Tucker, Dont'e Thornton and Jack Bech.

Thus, Smith played like a man whose top three wideouts were Tucker and two mid-draft rookies with 10 NFL catches between them coming into Week 7. As a result, his tight window throw percentage -- a measurement of how often he's throwing into coverage -- has risen from 12.5 percent last season to 18.3 this fall. That latter mark would be his worst full-season mark as a starter and currently ranks fourth-highest among qualified QBs.

Without open receivers, Smith's time to throw is also at a career high. That's led to plays like this:

STONECOLD GETS HOME 😤 pic.twitter.com/TxOLmMeG1H

— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) October 19, 2025

That doesn't quite explain how his bad throw rate has risen from 10.4 percent to 13.2 while his on-target throw rate has dipped to a career-worst 70.9 -- 27th-best among starters. Smith didn't have a perfect situation in Seattle, but he did have reliable wideouts who could create space between DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett and, for a couple years, Jaxon Smith-Njigba. On Sunday he had nothing of the sort and it translated to a terrible performance in a season littered with them.

2. Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars

• 2025 EPA/game: -1.0
• Week 7 EPA: -13.4
• Difference: 12.4 points worse

If there's one quarterback you'd expect to be prepared for a trip to London it would be the Jaguars' franchise quarterback. Except, whoops, Lawrence went back to the country where he's played six times in his pro career and had his worst game of what had been a quietly resurgent year for the former first overall pick.

The good news is Lawrence threw for nearly 300 yards without an interception. The bad news is he needed 48 attempts to get there and still missed on most of those throws.

Lawrence put up some fireworks for a team that fell behind 14-0 in the first quarter in the friendly confines of the Jags' second home. He threw 13 passes that traveled at least 20 yards downfield and completed four for 122 yards and a touchdown -- a 92.5 passer rating despite a litany of overthrows. His 35 other throws went for 174 yards without a score -- a 68.0 rating.

Playing from behind forced the Jaguars out of their comfort zone and into the Rams'. Los Angeles sacked Lawrence on the first play of the game and then got to him six more times. They hit him a total of 18 times on the day thanks to a combination of leaky blocking, a young and hungry defensive front and the need to keep launching shots downfield in a game that quickly got away from Jacksonville.

Lawrence's 2.87 seconds between snap and throw were his second-longest single-game mark of the year. That trailed only Week 6 where... the Jaguars fell behind in the first half, Lawrence was tasked with throwing his team back into the game and Jacksonville wound up giving up seven sacks.

That's been a bit of a trend for Lawrence. He has just two fourth quarter comebacks since 2023 -- two fewer than Baker Mayfield had in the first four weeks of 2025 alone. But one of those came against the Kansas City Chiefs with a 60-yard two-minute drill capped by a gritty play in which the young QB tripped in the backfield, got up and ran in the game-winning touchdown on his own.

That's the potential of Trevor Lawrence. That's why he gets the green light to throw it deep 11 times in a single game even when those throws keep sailing on him. He's got too much talent for the Jaguars to quit on him. But he's also glitchy enough to wind up in this column a few times per year.

1. Tua Tagovailoa, Miami Dolphins

• 2025 EPA/game: 1.2
• Week 7 EPA: -25.9
• Difference: 27.1 points worse

Tua Tagovailoa was four touchdowns and a field goal (no extra points) of expected value *worse* than he'd been, on average, this season. And he hasn't even been especially good this season!

This article originally appeared on For The Win: We are witnessing the end of Tua Tagovailoa (and the grossest QBs of Week 7)