Tuanon
When I made the Taylor Swift comic a couple of weeks ago I originally had written a bunch about how scary and next-level Swifties are. Real crazy degrees of adoration and worship. The more I thought about it though, the more I realized football fans, sports fans, any fans, don’t really have a leg to stand on there. Swifties level of devotion baffles me, but I’m sure football fandoms and the fanatics within also baffle them, and everyone else who isn’t into the sport. After all, every fandom has a subset of filth to it. The toxic sludge at the bottom of the barrel that has a weird smell. Football is no different. We have people who send death threats to family members of players if the player doesn’t score them enough fantasy points. We have people who attack each other in the stands; who throw beer on visiting fans. We have multiple advanced analytics sites that spawned because a bunch of nerds came up with their own formulas to try and make “objective data” analysis of team performance. And we have untold amounts of dipshits who spend their entire day yelling at people over the internet about sports opinions. Every comment section under a team/player ranking article will blind you if you stare at it too long.
One of these subsets has gained some notoriety in recent years. A certain smattering of Dolphins fans in various online spaces has gotten so weird about Tua and the Dolphins that they’ve earned their own nickname: Tuanon. Props to whoever coined that term, absolute chef’s kiss. They’ve really come on in the last two seasons, coinciding with Tua’s breaking out into a top-level QB. It’s a wild group of weirdos who will magically appear under almost any post about the Dolphins, or Tua, or most notably Justin Herbert praise, just to throw themselves around and call you dumb. Some are just frothing mad and yell at you and call you various things. Some try to pretend they are dignified in their attempt to call you dumb, taking a calm, composed tone to try and hide the fact that they came from the depths of some crevice and are just as mad at you as the loud obnoxious ones. I’m pretty sure that when I roll out of bed tomorrow and post this to Twitter I have a distinct chance of honeypotting at least one of them into my comments. I will swiftly mute them.
Groups of fans who stan a certain player aren’t anything new. If anything it is getting worse overall. I recently ran afoul of the rapidly rising Brock Purdy Posse by suggesting that he’s a mid-tier system QB. I didn’t even call him bad, just average in a great situation, and I got swarmed by multiple people acting like I ranked him 28th or something, and several of them continued to bug me afterward about it. If any of you weirdos who kept bringing him up to me after that are reading this, btw, I muted all of you, so have fun screaming into the void. There are few people more annoying online than the guy who disagreed with your one take and then they make it their mission to bring it up at every opportunity afterward to try and say I told you so. Even if you end up right, that’s annoying shit that makes nobody want to interact with you.
Tuanon is wild to me in that they don’t just appear in takes about the Dolphins. The Justin Herbert connection is real. If you compliment Justin Herbert online, you will very likely summon some of these guys who just can’t resist the opportunity to make it somehow about Tua. It’s fucking weird. My guess is that it is a group of insecure people who are taking a victory lap now that Tua has panned out and turned into a great QB, proving their early support of him correct.
It’s funny to watch this strange dynamic develop over time. The two players are linked in a few ways. Same draft, taken right after one another. But Herbert pretty much came right out of the gate a star and by year’s end was already in most top 10 QB lists. Tua struggled so the narrative was the Dolphins fucked up, and Tua was getting so much disparagement that I actually went and made a comic defending him at the time. Brian Flores feuded with Dolphin management and stories came out that apparently he wanted Herbert the whole time, and that he tried to trade for Watson, and that he didn’t like Tua. Tua was also coming back from a devastating injury and had some other injury setbacks, so while he never looked like a bust, he struggled, and Herbert’s ascension must have stung.
Of course a few years down the road and the narrative has kinda flipped. Herbert has plateaued. He’s still great, but his improvements are small and he has not really ascended into the elite pantheon, and after playoff failures and other struggles to get over the hump more and more people are beginning to raise an eyebrow at him. Meanwhile after Flores got canned Tua got the hottest young mind in football as his coach and he has rapidly ascended into the top 5 conversations with Herbie. He started off last year hot before the concussion problems set him back but this year has been an absolute explosion. Now Tua is getting recognition and all his fans are taking a victory lap out on anyone who dares suggest Herbert is cool or fun. Herbert is cool and fun! He’s not actually connected to Tua at all, and you can appreciate them both at the same time. You don’t have to compare them. I like watching both of them. I think both are second-tier QBs just below elite (for now), and I won’t rank one over the other because at a certain point you have to take into account external factors and right now I think Tua is in the better situation.
I saw someone compare Herbert to early career Stafford and I was like that makes sense. Good player who does make mistakes on a team with potential but generally chokes.
Eh that’s not really fair though. Stafford at least had a defense every now and than, Herbert’s meanwhile has been complete shit. Sure including playoffs he’s 27-28 but IIRC I think he’s something like 24-3 when his defense holds teams to 28 points and under. To put that into perspective an average NFL defense since he’s come into the league should be holding teams to an average of 22 points a game. So if you give him a defense that does that his record jumps to 42-13. Dude has to put on an offensive clinic every week or his team has no shot at winning.
That’s exactly what Stafford’s career was like. The only time he had a good defense was 2014.
Who even is a first tier elite QB right now? Mahomes has been better than anyone else over the past several years year but is currently in a little bit of a super bowl hangover. Josh Allen looks like an MVP one week and his rookie self the next. Brock Purdy is on a loaded team and completely folded without CMC and Deebo. Joe Burrow played hurt and was butt for like four weeks. Lamar Jackson has been efficient but has caught fumblitis. Justin Herbert has lost that clutch gene I thought he was developing in 2021. Tua has been on fire but still has an injury history and can falter vs. a strong front 4.
Is
Is the best QB in the league right now Jared Goff
Say it slower baby. Goffense for MVP.
I think Burrow is still elite but his injury has clearly hampered him so far this season. Allen can be elite but as you say, he’s inconsistent and I cant trust him to stay there during any given game.
I think the second tier is stuffed with dudes right now. Lamar, Tua, Hurts, Herbie, Goff, Dak, Lawrence, with guys like Cousins and Geno right there with an argument
It’s still Mahomes and then everyone else.
Man having a universally regarded best player is *boring*, thank god Mahomes is more fun to watch than Brady
Mahomes only managed 19 points on Denver lol
It will be the same as what happened with Eli and S&!tburger. The only difference is that if a Steelers fan was coming at me that S*&burger was better, I always had an out. I could mention Rivers or JP, and you could usually share a laugh and calm down. But when your QB class is Burrow, Hurts, Herbs, and Tua… it’s just all teeth gnashing right now about who is DA BESTEST EVER.
Your Purdy incident reminds me… one of my longtime friends from growing up is a 9ers fan, and we’ve had some epic arguments about it over the years. Before the Browns game, I laughed that Brock Purdy is like the inverse Daniel Jones. Namely, we have no idea how good Daniel Jones might become if he was on a jacked team. And inversely, we have no idea how bad Brock Purdy might be if he wasn’t on a team that could readily smooth over any blips in his play.
Well, let’s just say he wasn’t into having that discussion. LOL. I haven’t said bupkis to him about it since the Browns beat them.
My issue with the excessive Brock Purdy praise isn’t even that people are arguing that he’s good, it’s just the massive inconsistency in general surrounding him and the last mid-tier QB they had a ton of success with.
Like we literally just had this conversation several years ago when Jimmy Garoppolo showed up, won his first 13 starts with San Francisco, went 13-3 and took them to a Super Bowl in his first full season as a starter in 2019, and then went on to consistently make deep playoff runs with them when he was able to finish most of a season. People were smart enough back then to see that Jimmy Garoppolo clearly wasn’t the driving force behind those wins, and was just a cog in Shanahan’s massively overpowered machine, yet they seemingly ignored all of that with Purdy. And keep in mind that Jimmy G was doing all of what he did with an offense that didn’t get Brandon Aiyuk until 2020 and didn’t get Christian McCaffrey until 2022. So he was playing about the same in what was arguably a worse situation.
Hell, if you only look at his numbers in 2022 before getting hurt, you’d think he was a borderline T-10 QB. Highly efficient, solid yardage with only 1 dud game. But if you talk to fans about him, you’d think the dude was absolute garbage. Somehow Brock Purdy putting up the same numbers was enough to fool people into putting him in MVP discussions.
The only difference between the two are their paychecks. Jimmy Garoppolo received a disgustingly bloated contract extension to just be a slightly above-average game manager while Brock Purdy is getting paid $870k(?) to do the same thing. I have a hunch that as soon as the Niners decide to load up Brock’s pockets the same way they did Jimmy’s, all of this praise will cease immediately and people will suddenly recognize that he’s a reskin of Jimmy G that is slightly better outside of the pocket. It’s sad because I don’t want to be hater towards this guy. QBs like Purdy are fun, and it’s always nice to see the overlooked guy (or a literal ‘Mr. Irrelevant’) get his chance and crush it, but I don’t like the weird inconsistency. You can praise someone while still acknowledging their limitations as well as their exceptionally good situation.
“People were smart enough back then to see that Jimmy Garoppolo clearly wasn’t the driving force behind those wins, and was just a cog in Shanahan’s massively overpowered machine, yet they seemingly ignored all of that with Purdy. And keep in mind that Jimmy G was doing all of what he did with an offense that didn’t get Brandon Aiyuk until 2020 and didn’t get Christian McCaffrey until 2022. So he was playing about the same in what was arguably a worse situation.”
God I can’t agree with this paragraph any harder. Purdy has strengths and honestly seems smarter than Jimmy, but he is in one of the best possible scenarios right now
People are cheering for Purdy because they love an underdog story. They’ll turn on him the moment he actually wins anything and gets credit for it (or has a Milkshake Duck moment, which is certainly not out of the question).
[I’m a 49er fan, bear with me]
I do think we’ve seen that Purdy has been better than Jimmy BUT I also think people are definitely prematurely hyping up Purdy as the next GOAT. Both Purdy and Jimmy are/were massively helped out by Shanahan’s sytem and the skill position players on the team.
As a fan I watch all Niners games, and I feel confident that Purdy is better than Jimmy. He’s shown more skill in areas where Jimmy struggled: accuracy on deeper passes, avoiding turnovers, and extending plays/avoiding sacks. But I definitely can’t say that Purdy is as good as, say, Burrow because it’s hard to know how much Purdy and how much is the team that he’s on.
I think Purdy — with the exception of the Cleveland game — has been playing in that “Second tier” of QBs that Dave listed in a reply to another comment. Is that where Purdy will stay? Who knows! He obviously looked rough in the Cleveland game, and whether that’s a one-off bad game or more indicative of where he’ll wind up, we’ll find out.
I appreciate the perspective. I’ll admit that I don’t watch a lot of Niners games outside of the national TV broadcasts so I’m mostly going by the numbers as well as the bits and pieces that I do see. FWIW I don’t think Purdy is a bad QB in the same way that I didn’t think Garoppolo was a bad QB. They were both the perfect QB for the perfect system and they’ve both thrived under near perfect circumstances.
The Cleveland game was interesting not just because they were the first truly elite defense that San Francisco faced, but also because Purdy lost a couple of those elite pieces that allowed him to thrive the way that he has. They lost CMC and Deebo Samuel and Purdy struggled badly despite still having George Kittle and Brandon Aiyuk on the field. It doesn’t sound like CMC/Deebo are set to miss any time, but if they were to, I think that situation would show what Purdy actually is: Solid, but nowhere near worthy of the excessive hype and praise that he’s been receiving.
Man you really said it all. I think because Purdy has the whole “Mr. Irrelevant” story to accompany him, so many people are overlooking the serious help he’s getting. Not just a certified HOF RB in CMC, but a HOF-caliber TE, a solid OL (with a GREAT, HOF LT), tremendous WR options now that Aiyuk seems to be really cementing himself in the offense. Oh, AND the defense is still top-tier. This team IS better than any that have come before it by a wide margin, and we just kind of glaze over that fact when evaluating Purdy. He was taken last overall, but look at how much he’s producing! Kind of makes me wish Kirk Cousins was on this SF team just to see how his narrative would change.
But Herbert does suck though Tua better.
Also, every QB is second tier to Mahomes.
We get it, Collinsworth.
I feel like Herbert is the second coming of Matt Ryan. A very, very good QB who is always just a Planck’s Length away from being truly elite. Missing that special sauce that guys like Mahomes have.
Falcons and Chargers fandoms have kinda been linked for years. We both have QB’s for the hall of very good in Matt Ryan and Phillip Rivers. Ryan was a defense away from a bunch more wins for his career and Rivers had terrible special teams play derail a few seasons. Both QB’s had weapons and used them but could not quite get there, then both played for the Colts. Ryan is my all-time favorite player, but I have to agree with your assessment.
As for Herbert he seems to be saddled the same way Rivers was, but I will add that I think Herbert is one more coach cycle away from me saying he won’t become elite. Either Staley gets it together or a new regime gives it a try.
“Groups of fans who stan a certain player aren’t anything new. If anything it is getting worse overall.”
Worse than my childhood memories of all the Texas A&M fans who would wear maroon to Houston Oilers games and chant for Bucky Richardson (an option QB at A&M whose own offensive coordinator called a “wasted pick”) to enter the game? These folks ran Sean Salisbury out of town… only for him to come back to Houston as a sports radio gadfly.
Yikes! There really is no hope for us.
A&M fans being cancerous? Say it ain’t so! I remember back when the played the Wyoming Cowboys in Laramie in ’01 and tried to blame the grass being too long for why the Aggies only won by 8. I lived in Laramie at the time and trust me, a stiff breeze could beat that Cowboys team.
The Herbert stuff stems from the draft. Chargers fans were on serious copium about having to take Herbert (reminds me of that bills comic you made about Josh Allen) so they really shit on Tua for his first few seasons and only got worse when Herbert started playing lights out. Now that Tua is doing good after years of being shit on the fans feel vindicated. Which to be fair I dont know if I’ve ever seen such an average qb be ridiculed as much as Tua was over his first 2 seasons, only compounded by the Flores situation. Doesn’t help that people still insist Tua is bad and only a product of his surroundings. Hopefully it fades because both are excellent QBs
When I watch Herbert, I see John Elway – a guy with incredible ability who gets little help from his coaches or supporting cast (name one receiver he can rely on right now besides the ancient Keenan Allen) … but that’s not even accurate because Elway at least had an elite defense backing him up early in his career.
When I watch Tua, I see a better version of Mark Brunell – above average but not great talent who’s surrounded by an embarrassment of riches, to the point that it would be a huge disappointment if he DIDN’T put up video game numbers. He plays extremely well in structure but I remember his first couple of years in the league well enough to still wonder how much he’d regress if he lost Tyreek and/or Waddle or had to play behind that 2020 Dolphins offensive line again.
Tuanon is great, Purdy Posse might need some workshopping. Which made me think, what would followers of every starting QB be called? Feel free to use any (or all?) of these.
Tuanon
Allensauruses
Wil Sons (and Moms)
Mac Daddies
Thirsties
Mustache Riders
Fanahills
Stroud Boys
Mahomies
Jus-Stans
Garoupolies
The Russ Bus
Lamarshals
Burrowers
Pickers
Watsinners
Dumpies
Field Mice
Lovers
Gofflings
Riddlers
Carrtrippers
Younglings
Mayflies
Purdy Rockers
Staffers
Genocoasters
Dobbies
Dak Backers
Howlers
The Hurts Locker
Danny’s Dozen (because that’s how many of them are left)
I can only assume that was a typo. It’s Mac Saddies, right?
They will never exist so it’s irrelevant
If that was a joke directed at my being anonymous I swear, my name fell off. Stupid cookies or whatever.
I’ve seen the Herbert thing, but more generally. Just mentioning “herbert is good” brings upon an avalanche of bad takes just because staley took a timeout once and that caused the raiders coach to risk his season for a petty reason.
Usually it’s dak fans though that get insane about this, screeching about how dak is better than herbert, not tua.
I had no idea that this was even a thing.
Tua is good, I think we can all agree on that. He looked good early but had some injury issues.
Guess who else is good? Herbert. Justin Herbert is also good and they can BOTH be good. I think Herbert is held back by coaching at this point but that’s a separate conversation.
You know who ELSE else is good? Brock Purdy. Purdy is – I think – actually good. He had a bad game against the Browns but so far, there’s nothing to say he can’t be great.
ALL of these things can be true at the same time. I’m just…. I guess not surprised but annoyed that people can’t realize that Tua, Herbert, and Purdy are all good at the same time.
I think the reason Tuanon is so vitriolic towards Herbert is because the media, which already loves shitting on the Dolphins, spent two years telling us how the Dolphins messed up by drafting Tua over Herbert. Now I do think there was a point there, because I think Herbert was a better fit with Flores and that’s who he wanted, and Herbert hasn’t been any worse than Tua, but when your guy’s been getting shit on for two years by the same people who keep shitting on your team, well, people are going to take any chance they can get to shit on them right back. Doesn’t make it right, but I can at least understand it.
I think “Media loves shitting on the dolphins” is just bias perspective. I’m neutral to Miami and I’ve never seen anything like that. In fact I’d be more inclined to suggest the chargers might get it worse. Any Dolphins criticism I’ve seen these past few years has been about level with everyone else and usually based around fair points like how they handled the Concussion thing and the Flores drama.
Maybe not media loves shitting on the dolphins in general, but the rest of buttpunts points are correct. for years the fins fans suffered with everyone making fun of them for taking tua.
The Chargers absolutely get it worse because they’ve had much worse coaching over the past 5-10 years, and have fallen apart more and more drastically than Miami. There was a good stretch of time here the Chargers would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in spectacular fashion. The Dolphins were just bad….then they got better under BFlo, even then most of the ire was directed at Adam Gase rather than the team as a whole. The Chargers have had some really nice pieces, been lightly-hyped by the media, and then drastically fallen apart over the years. But, I understand that every fan base sees themselves as the victims.
The Dolphins got mocked for drafting Tua. He was criticized for his perceived fragility, mocked for his “noodle arm” and he looked on paper like a potential bust compared to Herbert, who seemed ready to start. It only got worse when Herbert immediately took the field and proved his worth while Tua spent time on the bench. Tua was obviously in a bad situation, he was coming back from a catastrophic injury that caused him to alter or relearn his mechanics, his coach seriously seemed like he didn’t want him and wasn’t interested in playing to his strengths. Herbert got lauded, and Tua got ridiculed. When Miami picked up Tyreek Hill, the jokes about Tua underthrowing him were non-stop.
“Can’t believe they drafted Tua instead of Herbert” was an endlessly repeated statement.
Then the Dolphins got hot, Tua got real hot, but the meme was that he was only throwing 5 yard passes to his incredibly fast receivers and letting them do all the work. Didn’t matter if it wasn’t true, that was the narrative, that any QB could put up those numbers with that backfield. Despite that fact that Miami’s backups absolutely floundered when they had to start. Tua couldn’t catch a break it seemed. Now Tua is starting strong again and Herbert is struggling under the Chargers.
I mean, it makes sense that there are die-hards out there who after literally three years of ridicule are feeling confident enough to throw all the jokes back at the “Tua Haters.” Dolphins fans are maybe more hyped than I have seen in years, they are a fun team to watch and Tua is front-and-center among the top QBs in the league. It probably won’t last, because a lifetime of experience has taught me that it never does, but damn if for this shining moment we have a contender. May as well talk trash while you can, you know?