Tua Tagovailoa won’t have to go far to start his next chapter in the NFL. 

The ex-Miami Dolphins quarterback "plans to sign" a one-year deal with the Atlanta Falcons, joining fellow left-handed thrower Michael Penix Jr. in what’s expected to be a quarterback competition heading into the 2026 season, per ESPN reported. 

The Dolphins officially made their decision on Tagovailoa on Monday, though the writing has been on the wall for quite some time. Dolphins new general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan announced that the team will release him when free agency begins, cutting ties with the team’s 2020 first-round draft choice as a new regime moves in, including head coach Jeff Hafley. 

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Miami quickly found a potential Tagovailoa replacement, too, agreeing to terms with Malik Willis, who Sullivan and Hafley know well as he backed up Jordan Love with the Green Bay Packers in recent seasons. 

"As I shared with Tua, I have great respect for the person and player he is," Sullivan said in a statement. "On behalf of the Miami Dolphins, I expressed our gratitude for his many contributions, both on the field and in the community, during his six seasons in Miami."

DOLPHINS APPEAR TO FIND TUA TAGOVAILOA'S REPLACEMENT AS FREE AGENCY OPENS

There was chatter about Tagovailoa potentially joining the Falcons, who also made a quarterback move by letting veteran Kirk Cousins go to pursue his next opportunity around the league. 

With a one-year deal (terms were not disclosed), Tagovailoa figures to battle it out in training camp with Penix, whom the Falcons took eighth overall in the 2024 NFL Draft out of Washington. He’s coming off a partially torn ACL suffered in Week 11 against the Carolina Panthers. 

Before then, Penix, who went 3-6 in his nine starts last season for Atlanta, threw for 1,982 yards with nine touchdown passes and three interceptions, completing 60.1% of his throws. 

Meanwhile, Tagovailoa could benefit from a fresh start after struggling in his final year with Miami last season. He went 6-8 as the team’s starter, throwing for 2,660 yards with 20 touchdowns and 15 interceptions, as the Dolphins failed to make the playoffs once again. 

This wasn’t what the Dolphins had in mind after the Alabama product did enough to warrant a four-year, $212.4 million contract extension at the start of the 2024 season. Now, Miami is expected to make Tagovailoa a post-June 1 designation, taking on $99 million in dead cap space split over the next two seasons, ESPN reported.

Tagovailoa made just one playoff appearance and one Pro Bowl in his six seasons with the Dolphins, which came in 2023 when Miami went 11-6. 

The Falcons are desperate to get back into the playoffs, having done so last in 2017 where they lost in the Divisional Round. Under the leadership of Matt Ryan at quarterback, the Falcons made the Super Bowl in 2016, though it was an infamous ending, having blown a 28-3 lead to the New England Patriots. 

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An Arizona state lawmaker revealed Monday that federal authorities subpoenaed him for records related to the 2020 election, marking the second publicly confirmed jurisdiction the Department of Justice is investigating over the matter.

Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, a Republican, said in a social media post he received the subpoena for material related to the state Senate's 2020 audit last week and complied with it.

"Late last week I received and complied with a federal grand jury subpoena for records relating to the Arizona State Senate’s 2020 audit of Maricopa County," Petersen wrote. "The FBI has the records. Any other report is fake news."

The request represents an expansion of a federal probe tied to 2020 after the DOJ initially targeted Fulton County, Georgia. The development also comes as President Donald Trump has grown increasingly outspoken about election security in the lead-up to the 2026 midterms, renewing his attention on disputes stemming from the last presidential race.

FBI AGENTS SEARCH ELECTION HUB IN FULTON COUNTY, GEORGIA

Petersen made the revelation after President Donald Trump shared a Just the News report about the subpoena on Truth Social, writing, "Great!!! FBI secretly seizes election records from Arizona's largest county as voting probe expands."

Multiple U.S. officials confirmed the election probe to Fox News, saying the DOJ is looking at a large tranche of Arizona data from 2020 and 2024.

The White House directed Fox News Digital to the FBI on Monday when asked for comment. The FBI declined to comment.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, an elected Democrat, said the new investigation was based on claims that courts and state investigators have proven wrong.

"What the Trump administration appears to be pursuing now is not a legitimate law enforcement inquiry," Mayes said in a statement. "It is the weaponization of federal law enforcement in service of crackpots and lies."

JUDGE DISMISSES 2020 ELECTION INTERFERENCE CASE AGAINST TRUMP

The subpoena comes as the president increasingly focuses on election security ahead of the 2026 midterms, telling Congress in a social media post on Sunday that he will not sign any legislation into law until it passes the SAVE America Act.

The bill's primary purpose is to require voters nationwide to show physical identification to prove citizenship to vote in federal elections. The version of the bill Trump is pushing would also ban mail-in ballots except for the military and in other extenuating circumstances.

Maricopa, Arizona's most populous county, was a hotbed for accusations of voter fraud in 2020. Fulton County, Georgia, faced similar accusations, with the DOJ launching a separate investigation into the 2020 election earlier this year. 

Trump lost Arizona in 2020 by about 0.3 percentage points. The president refused to concede, and his legal team brought a series of lawsuits alleging vote-counting irregularities, but none were successful.

Fox News' David Spunt and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.