I would like to think Grier has a fair handle on what Tua is worth on the open market else that would make negotiating his contract a lot more difficult. Like I said earlier both sides have leverage and both sides will employ stats, other league contracts, results to date, injury histories and everything and anything else in those negotiations to hopefully at some point wind up with an accord.
I'm personally a Dolphin fan first and then Tua and any other player second. I want a team "friendly" deal. The reality is that doesn't mean it has to be $30 mil a year or some other type of way low figure relative to "market". It just means it needs to be team friendly from the Dolphin's point of view. A team friendly deal still likely means several years of security for Tua and $130 mil +/- guaranteed which has to be quite attractive to Tua and his camp despite "other QB's in his class" maybe having gotten more. The team has leverage and needs to use it, Tua is under contract and will play for us this year. I doubt he wants to risk $100 mil on whether he gets seriously injured this year or not, he would much rather the team take on that risk and guarantee him his money now. For this reason alone it needs to be a team friendly deal.
This is the art of negotiation and what is happening now. From the club's perspective the fact we likely (my words/thoughts) would be fine either signing him now before the season at a team friendly prescribed level, or if not, letting him play out the final year of his contract, is in fact our leverage. There are pro's/con's either way but we can at least look the Tua camp in the eye and say heh if you want to sign now and collect these guarantees this is where it needs to be otherwise we'll roll with the $23.1 mil we owe you this year, and then have a franchise tag option behind that and see how things go.
I doubt very much that we would just sign him to a league setting or top of market deal right now, that would be foolish. Can always do that next year if necessary if he crushes it which is what we all want anyway, then you would have had him for $23.1MM in '24 and relatively low cap hits in '25 and '26 versus scrapping the current contract now for low hits in '24 and '25 with a huge jump in '26.
I think a deal gets done late summer/early fall at a team friendly level, will be too hard for Tua to turn down. If that doesn't happen then letting him play out his current contract is not the end of the world and actually provides insurance against the currently unknown, injury/performance/both that would reduce his value. Frankly I'm fine either way, only thing I wouldn't be fine with is signing him to a league setting or near league setting level just because that's a little bit more than the last 4-5 guys got.