Where did all that senseless hate aimed at Tua Tagovailoa go?

Remember last year, when the Miami Dolphins quarterback from Ewa Beach and Saint Louis School could do no right in the eyes of many, even when he played well and led Miami to some big wins?

It’s true that quarterbacks get too much credit when their teams win and too much blame when they lose. The thing about Tua, though, was how much he’d get ripped even after victories.

That’s not to say he didn’t have loyal fans who came to his defense. The last time someone born so close to the equator was so polarizing, he lived in the White House.

This year, with the Dolphins off to a 5-1 start, Tua is already being associated with three other letters.

Is MVP conjecture a bit silly this early in the season? Of course it is.

And it is part of why some of that hate remains — as it always does for any NFL quarterback, even (or especially) the most successful. But, unless you take Stephen A. Smith seriously, most of the criticism this season is less shrill and more good-natured — like the following tweet (or should these be called X posts now?):

“My fantasy team was playing Tua last week. I immediately threw my phone in the garbage because I had no hope vs his greatness.”

I feel ya, RealFunBobby, whoever and wherever you are. I’m paddling around in that same leaky boat this week, going up against Tua PLUS his favorite target, Tyreek Hill.

I hate having to play against fantasy football Tua. But real-life Tua is a very likable guy.

It’s like a former University of Hawaii linebacker known for his bone-crushing blitzes told me: “We don’t want to injure the other team’s quarterback, we just want to knock him out of the game. After our game we wish him all the best.”

Reality rarely works that way, as we saw with Tagovailoa last year. The potential lingering effects of concussions he suffered during the season were so concerning that some suggested he retire from the NFL — at age 24.

That obviously didn’t happen, but he missed four games in 2022 and the Dolphins lost three of them. They finished 9-8 after starting 8-3, and lost as a playoff wild card team to the Bills, 34-31, with third-string quarterback Skylar Thompson playing.

Fast forward to today, and the 2023 Dolphins lead the AFC East. They are tied with four other teams for the NFL’s best record at 5-1.

Tua has the league’s top quarterback rating at 114.1. Like most football stats, QBR is dependent in many ways on the performance of teammates … and I think we can all agree that Tua has some great ones.

It’s impossible to accurately evaluate and rank the individuals in what is called the ultimate team sport unless you have a bunch of knowledgeable people carefully watch everything that happens on every down at every game. But that’s exactly what Pro Football Focus (pff.com) attempts to do.

Each player’s actions on each play are isolated, and the result of the play does not matter. For example, quarterbacks are not penalized for accurately thrown passes that receivers drop.

At this point of the season, PFF has Tua ranked fourth among quarterbacks. Detroit’s Jared Goff is No. 1, followed by Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson and Buffalo’s Josh Allen. Patrick Mahomes of the Super Bowl-winning Kansas City Chiefs is fifth.

Justin Herbert of the Chargers is 12th, Joe Burrow (Bengals) 21st and Jordan Love (Packers) 23rd. Tagovailoa will always be compared to these three QBs even more than others because they were all drafted in the first round in 2020 — Burrow first, Tua fifth, Herbert sixth and Love 26th.

Jalen Hurts — who the Eagles picked in the second round of that 2020 draft, and who Tagovailoa supplanted as the starter at Alabama — is 10th in the PFF QB rankings. The Dolphins play the defending NFC champion Eagles, who are quarterbacked by Hurts, on Sunday, and are another of those 5-1 teams.

Ultimately, all of those stats and rankings won’t mean anything if Tagovailoa doesn’t remain healthy. Plus, even though they’re not making tackles and kicking field goals, I like to rate QBs by the letters W and L more than any numbers.

People laughed when Tua took jiu-jitsu lessons in the offseason to learn about how to fall correctly.

But if it lowers the chance of his getting injured, there’s nothing to hate about that.