1) Legendary Hawaiian QBs are leaving
While Madrid will be without one of the NFL’s rising stars in Jayden Daniels, who is out with an elbow injury, fate has seen the Spanish outfit witness some special quarterback play. Washington’s Marcus Mariota and Miami’s Tua Tagovailoa – two Honolulu QBs who had similar paths to being selected in the first round of the NFL draft – will meet for the first time in their careers. Their storyline is simply remarkable. Mariota, 32, became a mentor to Tagovailoa, 27, when the latter was a fourth-grader participating in a football camp at Saint Louis School in Honolulu, where each eventually won the Hawaii Gatorade State Player of the Year award and high school state titles. Mariota became Hawaii’s first Heisman Trophy winner and played in a national championship with the University of Oregon in 2014 before Tagovailoa won the 2018 CFP National Championship with the University of Alabama after finishing second in the Heisman voting. Mariota (No. 2 overall in 2015) and Tagovailoa (No. 5 overall in 2020) became the second team out of the same high school to be selected in the top five, according to NFL Research. Peyton and Eli Manning, from Isidore Newman High School in New Orleans, Louisiana, were the first. On Sunday, Mariota and Tagovailoa finally meet in the NFL. It will be Mariota’s fifth start this season for the Chiefs. He has been solid in relief of Daniels, posting a 91.9 passer rating with seven touchdowns. Tagovailoa’s sixth campaign with the Dolphins has been marred by turnovers (a league-high 13 interceptions), but the lefty has been more efficient lately. Nearly 8,000 miles away in Madrid, two of Honolulu’s greats will look to make the state of Hawaii proud.