Tua Tagovailoa – April 20, 2022
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Wednesday, April 20, 2022
QB Tua Tagovailoa
(So what’s it like throwing to WR Tyreek Hill?) – “It’s fun. You catch glimpses of his speed and you obviously have played against him and seen him play in other games, seen his highlights as well. He’s explosive. He can turn a negative two-yard swing route into a 20-yard touchdown or a 20-yard gain. It’s pretty cool. It’s exciting.”
(Do you feel a renewed sense of the franchise backing you this offseason after so many trade rumors swirling in the past?) – “I think it’s – I just feel like there are so many things that have happened. There are a lot of changes, and a lot of good changes, I guess, with the people that we’ve picked up and the guys that we’ve acquired as well. The locker room feels different. We’re all excited. This is the first time I’ve seen a lot of guys show up to Phase I of OTAs and a lot of veterans are showing up to it. I think that speaks a lot to Mike (McDaniel) and the relationship he has with a lot of the guys on the team and the amount of respect that he has from the players in the locker room.”
(There’s a school of thought that says that the Dolphins added quality at receiver, on the offensive line and at running back, and now it puts more pressure on you. Not just pressure. We know you had pressure all along. But more pressure on you. How do you respond?) – “I think pressure is going to be there every time. I don’t feel more pressure that we’ve acquired all of these guys. It’s more of an opportunity that I get, that we all get as a team, to show what we can do this year”
(What has been your primary focus in your training this offseason?) – “Well, towards the scheme of this offense, I’ve been kind of switching up my footwork and working on different footwork and drills as well. That’s really been it. Normal lift, conditioning, get in shape. But other than that, the point of emphasis has really been my footwork.”
(What do you like about this offense? I believe you did operate a similar offense with Steve Sarkisian at Alabama. But what do you personally like about this offense?) – “Well, we’ve only had two days of really getting into the offense, so there’s not much installed within the run, the run action and play passes that we have. It’s very similar to what I’ve run at Alabama, which in a sense makes it a little easier as far as verbiage and whatnot. But that’s still a challenge, learning the verbiage, learning where everyone is going, hearing Mike (McDaniel) or Frank (Smith) or whoever it is in the headset trying to give the call and then recalling it to the offense. That’s still something that I’ve got to continue to get better at.”
(What’s your relationship with Head Coach Mike McDaniel been like over the past couple of months?) – “I don’t know if you’ve seen the videos of him at the luau. I think that speaks a lot. That’s kind of how the relationship has been. Very supportive. He wants to hang out. I go up there to his office and tell him I’ve got a couple of the guys coming over to hang out and he feels bad that he didn’t get an invite to come over and hang out. (laughter) It’s been a really cool relationship. It’s been different but it’s been super cool.”
(What does that support mean to you from your coach?) – “I think support for any of us as players means a lot. We understand that the NFL is a tough industry. It’s tough to play because you’re playing against the best every Sunday. But to be able to have support of the head coach, the head guy, that should tell you a lot.”
(How much work do you feel like you’ve put into becoming a better leader and having more of a leadership presence on this team?) – “I think the cool thing about being on this team under Mike is that Mike doesn’t force you to be what you’re not or what you don’t want to be. If this is how you lead, that’s all he wants you to do is lead the way you lead. He doesn’t want anyone to pull that guy to the side and tell him how bad his route was and whatnot and come back to the huddle. It’s more like ‘Hey, go talk to the guy. Tell him what your thoughts are. He’ll tell you what his thoughts are. Meet in the middle,” and that’s what that is. For me, I’m not a guy to go screaming at the defense if they bust a coverage and we’re trying to get some work. After all of that, when our set is done, I’ll go over and kind of talk to them and say ‘Hey, we really need you guys to help us on this because if you guys don’t give us the looks, then we’re not going to be able to execute that right in the game.’ For me, my leadership role on this team hasn’t changed. Just be myself. What more can you ask?”
(In throwing this offseason after you’ve had to come back from multiple injuries in the past, do you feel a refreshed sense of being able to put a little extra on throws? Do you feel that?) – “I don’t feel any of that at all. I think the most important thing is timing with these guys. These guys are going to get there. You just lay it up to a spot for them and have them go get it. That’s what we’ve been working on throughout this voluntary veteran minicamp and I think we’ve done a good job. We had a lot of fun today.”
(Were you surprised by the coaching change?) – “Was I surprised by the coaching change? When they hired Mike (McDaniel)?”
(When they let go of Brian Flores and then hired Mike McDaniel.) – “I would say I have no comment towards any of that just because I don’t come up with those decisions. I don’t make those decisions, so no comment.”
(There was a lot said about your relationship with Brian Flores. What would you consider you and Flo’s relationship?) – “That’s a big question. Well, I’ll tell you this. I’m very thankful that he drafted me to come here to play for the Miami Dolphins. That’s what I’d say.”
(Sometime after the Tennessee game, you said you were going to try to find somewhere cold to throw and practice for those kind of situations. Were you able to do that this offseason?) – “Yeah. I went up to Maryland. I went up to see my brother. I got to throw there for some time and it was actually snowing in Maryland when I went up there. I got to do that.”
(Did you have any crab cakes?) – “No. I didn’t get any crab cakes. (laughter)”
(What was the experience like for you throwing in the snow? I don’t know how often you’ve ever had to…) – “I don’t know. To me, in the snow, it was a lot – I don’t know for some reason it was a lot easier. It might have been a lot better to throw in the snow whereas if it’s just cold and windy, I don’t know the ball just freezes up for some reason. I don’t know what the science behind that is. If you guys can get that, that would be amazing. (laughter) I don’t know what that was.”
(I heard on a Dolphins podcast that you talked about six offensive coordinators and six offenses since Alabama. How has that impacted your development or ability to learn offenses? Obviously six offenses probably have six different languages.) – “Yeah, you really just get used to studying and you get comfortable studying. That’s all it is. You get comfortable with the verbiage, get comfortable with where everyone needs to go. For me, I like to draw it up when I can say it. So I’ll say it, I’ll draw it up, where everyone goes, and then I’ll have my brother or my dad, someone test me and quiz me on it. Then from there, I’ll go outside in the back yard and then I’ll move my dad or my brother or whoever is out there, my mom sometimes. I’ll move them, telling them ‘Hey, you’re at the Z now.’ Or ‘you’re the X,’ or ‘you’re the Y.’ Just so I can picture it better. So when we do come out there, it’s a lot easier when guys do ask, ‘Hey, where do I go? And what do I run?’”
(What’s that like having your family in your backyard and having them line up and run plays?) – “I’ll tell you what, they enjoy it. They really enjoy it. I guess my parents, they really enjoy it. My brother, it’s one of those things where it’s like ‘Hey, how many more do we have?’ (laughter) But my parents, they do everything that they can to help me succeed so they don’t mind at all.”
(On the T Terron Armstead addition and what it means for stabilizing the offensive line and for him specifically.) – “I think with Terron Armstead being here, his leadership, his being a veteran in the league, him knowing so much and playing under a quarterback like Drew Brees prior, and then him being able to help me lead the offense, pull guys to the side and do certain things. Just his leadership, he hasn’t been out to practice yet but just him being around the building, he’s a really nice person. He’s a really good person.”
(You can’t invite the head coach to hang out.) – “You can. This one, you can. (laughter)”
(Mike McDaniel is that cool?) – “He’s that cool. Yeah. (laughter)”
(What’s it been like working with Quarterbacks/Passing Game Coordinator Darrell Bevell? You haven’t really had a quarterbacks coach whose had so much experience and has worked with so many fantastic amazing quarterbacks.) – “I didn’t know that Coach Bevell coached Brett Favre, coached Aaron Rodgers, coached Russell Wilson. Those aren’t some small-time names. Those are big-time guys. It’s a privilege to have him in our quarterback room, to have Teddy (Bridgewater) in our quarterback room and also Dan (Marino) sitting in our quarterback room as well. (There is) a lot of knowledge there. So being able to pick all of their brains and hearing what they have to say, I think it’s good.”
(What’s your expectation for yourself in Year 3?) – “Help our team win games and as many games as we can.”
(Outside of working on your game this summer, what are your plans between now and the start of training camp? What are you going to do away from football?) – “Golf. Probably golf. That’s it.”
(How is your golf game?) – “It’s all right. The best I shot was an 81. Has anyone in here shot an 81? (laughter) No lessons, though. I never took lessons. All YouTube baby. (laughter)”
(You said you watched tape of WR Cedrick Wilson. Can you talk about the specific skills that you think he’s going to bring?) – “Yeah, with Cedrick, I thought he was a lot smaller for some reason. Maybe the No. 1 made him look extremely slim when he was with the Cowboys. I thought he was a very small, shifty guy but he’s actually really big. He’s tall, he’s lanky and he can move, which surprises me. Normally tall guys can’t move as quick and aren’t as shifty. It’s cool to see him out there running routes. He’s done a good job thus far within our voluntary veteran minicamp, so I’m excited.”
(You mentioned QB Teddy Bridgewater. What have been your early impressions of him as a guy and what kind of working relationship are you looking forward to having with him?) – “Well, I’m looking forward to having a relationship the way that I have with our quarterbacks coach and our head coach, with Teddy. I would say that’s the same relationship I had with ‘Fitz’ (Ryan Fitzpatrick) and the same relationship I had with Jacoby (Brissett) last year. A bunch of good guys. You can learn a lot from Teddy. Teddy’s been in the league for quite some time. He doesn’t talk much but when you do decide to talk to Teddy, he’ll open up a little and he’ll share whatever you ask him.”
(Have you watched every throw you made last year? If you haven’t, do you plan to? And when you watch or if you’ve already done it, you emerged with what thought in terms of where specifically you need to be better?) – “I watched not every throw of last year. Well, I have watched every throw of last year if you want to say we watched film last year, yeah. But I sat down with the head coach and we went over about 150 clips of throws. Throws that need to be better, throws that were good, all sorts of throws. The reason as to why he showed me that is it transitions to the way he kind of schemes up the offense. Really, the biggest thing for us is YAC (yards after catch). We want to YAC the heck out of teams.”
(One thing that Head Coach Mike McDaniel pointed out is that while he does have a specific system and scheme, he does want to tailor it to his players’ skillsets. How much input have you had in kind of developing that playbook and maybe what’s that process kind of been like? You talked about going through clips of you throwing and whatnot. What has that process been like?) – “For me, that process has just been me studying the formations and studying what they have as far as install with pass plays. It’s really early on as to trying to fine-tune things right now within the playbook. I’m sure when training camp hits, that’s when everyone will start to have their input within the play calls, the formations, how things should be called, why we don’t want to call it this, why we should call it that. Things like that. All of the fun things.”
Chris Grier – April 20, 2022
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Wednesday, April 20, 2022
General Manager Chris Grier
(Were the reports accurate that Tom Brady was going to join as a high-level organization and would he have been involved in personnel decisions?) – “I appreciate the question but I’m just going to talk about the draft and 2022 here, our preparation and getting ready for our excitement right now and minicamp and stuff. I appreciate the question.”
(Opening statement) – “First I’d like to say congrats to the Heat. A great start. Those guys have been very good to us and we’ve spent some time with those guys, so we’re very excited to see them off to a great start and then looking forward to the Panthers with their run here come – they spent some time here this summer as well and it’s great to see those guys, the work they’ve put in – and obviously my brother is with the Rangers – so I root for them except for against the Rangers. But I wish them a lot of luck, too as well. And the Marlins are off to a great start. Good young team. We’ve watched them a couple times here, so good time for South Florida sports and good luck to Inter Miami. I think they’re (in the) third round versus the B-team or whatever in North American soccer. So it’s a good time to be a South Florida sports fan.”
(So WR Tyreek Hill is sort of your first-round pick. Do you psychologically think of it that way and how do you think his skillset compares to some of the first-round receivers of this year and recent years?) – “Yeah, like we were trying to figure out what we were going to do on draft day and one of the guys said we’ll just watch Tyreek highlights in the draft room to make us feel good. (laughter) But it’s unfair to compare any of those kids to Tyreek’s skillset coming out. He’s such a unique talent and even yesterday on the field he made a play and went down and then popped up like no hands, flipped up right off the ground. And we were just like, ‘look at this guy.’ (laughter) He’s just so explosive and springy and just the way he works out at practice – his work ethic is unbelievable. So again, it’s a talented class of receivers, but obviously we can’t compare them to Tyreek at all and for what he does and what we feel he does in this offense and what a great fit he is.”
(For this specific draft cycle, obviously a couple weeks ago you shipped off a lot of your picks. Since then, have you found yourself kind of changing the process at all in terms of maybe how many guys you’re sending out to pro days and whatnot? And big picture, there’s been a lot of talk about the Rams kind of changing their scouting process and the information that they’re relying on. How have you seen your department – your scouting department’s kind of overall process change over the years?) – “We haven’t changed our process because I think you end up shortchanging the organization if you do that, because at the end of the day, you never know when opportunities arise to do something, whether you make a move or not or if a player falls and you think there’s a chance to go get him. So you have to work through your process and be ready to answer all questions and at the end of the day, you never know, this could a trade a year or two on a player and if you haven’t done your work just because you don’t pick until 102, it could end up hurting you when you don’t have all the information if those opportunities arise. So for us, we had guys who were out at all pro days. Coaches were out. Coaches were doing private workouts. They still have some private workouts going on here over the next week or so. So for us, it’s been full steam ahead. The personnel staff has done a tremendous job and the coaching staff – Mike (McDaniel) and the coaching staff – these guys enjoyed getting out and getting to meet players, bringing them in so the private workout stuff has been exciting and I think the coaches really enjoy getting to know these players, too, as well.”
(If no center is drafted in the third or fourth round, someone that you feel can legitimately compete with C/G Michael Deiter, would you at that point sign a veteran center? Not to get into any names, but if you could shed some light on the thinking with that – do you want to get through the draft before deciding whether to sign a veteran center as competition or depth?) – “Yeah, I think like we’ve always shown, we’ll always keep looking at players. We’ll keep digging and going through once the draft is over, but I think we also have an opportunity post-draft to add a lot of players through college free agency, too. So there will be some players that always fall through the cracks that don’t get drafted and we’ve spent a lot of time – the coaching staff and the scouts have spent a tremendous amount of time and effort to really study the back end of the draft, as we should. So we’ve spent a lot of time trying to identify players at all positions across there. But at the end of the day, we’ll still – like we always have – we’ve added players every year over the summer and we’ll keep doing that.”
(Conventional wisdom is that this may not be – top-heavy is not the right word, but having the same number of elite players, prospects as in years past? Do you agree with that? Has that kind of shaped your opinion as to why you traded out a lot the picks in this year’s draft?) – “That’s always difficult because everything is a projection. So people always say that and then you look back at some drafts and you’re like, ‘wow’ – you know how that goes. Twelve of those first-round picks are guys that may be Pro Bowlers every year and Hall of Fame guys in the future. So every draft has its strengths and weaknesses by position so I think for us, trading those picks really had nothing to do with how the draft looked. It was the opportunity to acquire Tyreek Hill. Just a special talent for what we were looking for. So at the end of the day, every draft will be judged three years from now. You know how it looks. And every year we go through, some people think it’s not strong or weak and I think you’ve really got to give these kids three years to really develop and see where everything stands.”
(Have you assessed what the strengths and the weaknesses are in this draft?) – “Yeah, I would say the offensive line group, it’s a pretty good offensive line group. I think there’s some talent all the way through from the tackles, the guards, centers, all the way in through the mid rounds. I think you can find some good quality players. Like everything, everyone is always looking for the pass rushers. I think there are some high-level rushers in this draft and then at the end of the day, then it’ll be some projection. Guys that have some upside to work with. So I would say the big – offensive line to me, I think is the one real strong position in this draft.”
(Was it a concerted effort on your end to hang onto those first rounders next year when you were putting together the WR Tyreek Hill trade?) – “Yeah. I’m not going to lie, it was important for us to keep those two picks because we had done so much to acquire those before. So I think for us when you make a move for Tyreek like that, you also want to be prepared to have picks for the future. And having those two picks and then picking up the pick for DeVante (Parker), another third, gives us five picks in the first three rounds with two ones and two threes. So we feel good about that heading into next year, into 2023.”
(With what you guys were able to accomplish in free agency and what you think it looks like in the draft, do you think you’ve given QB Tua Tagovailoa the pieces around him to succeed maybe in a way that wasn’t the case the past couple years?) – “Yeah, I think a lot of that, too, has to do with Coach McDaniel and his coaching staff. Kind of the offense that Mike does and what he’s building here and what his philosophy has been; I think yes, we’ve added some pieces on offense as well, but a lot of fits what Mike is looking for. And yeah, a lot of it does fit what Tua does well and I think we’re all very excited. I know Mike has been raving about Tua here over – him and Coach (Darrell) Bevell – their time working with him and spending time with him in the meeting rooms and watching him on the field here yesterday. So yeah, we’re very excited for him and looking forward to the season and how he keeps progressing.”
(Obviously anything could come up at any point but as we sit and stand here now, does it feel unlikely that the Dolphins would be looking to aggressively move back into the first round of this year’s draft?) – “Yeah, we’ll always listen. If there’s an opportunity, if there’s a guy that we think is a special talent that is falling or something, we’ll look into it. I wouldn’t say never. You know us, we’ll always keep looking and investigating everything.”
(You mentioned WR DeVante Parker a little while ago. How much hesitation was there when trading to a team within the division and also the idea of picking up the pick next year as opposed to this year? Was that preference or?) – “I think you’ve seen over the last couple of years more teams doing intra-divisional trades, which before when I first started in here, you would never do that. I think the last time we did it was with our current receiver coach (Wes Welker), which didn’t turn out well for us then. (laughter) I think when you have the opportunity to do right by the player and the organization, both sides feel good about it. Like I said, this was never anything where we planned to trade DeVante. Once we made the trade for Tyreek (Hill), we received multiple phone calls and I think most teams assumed that we signed Cedrick Wilson, traded for Tyreek and obviously with (Jaylen) Waddle here, that DeVante was the guy that would be available. Multiple teams called. The Patriots were the most aggressive. At the end of the day, we worked with the agent, talked to DeVante and wanted to do right by him too as well. Getting that third-round pick was very important for us and we were fine if it was this year or next year.”
(You talked about the excitement of this process. As a GM, is there anything that stands out to you or is your favorite thing about this process or is it all business?) – “It’s just all business. It’s like everything. When I have a teenage son that follows on Twitter and everything and I’m not on it, but before we made the two moves he’s like, ‘Man, everyone hates you in South Florida. They’re like you’re not doing anything.’ (laughter) Then we get (Terron) Armstead and make the trade and he’s like, ‘Man, everyone loves you now.’ I said, ‘Hey, it’s the nature of the beast.’ As you guys know, I appreciate the job that you guys do and I don’t take anything personal. I don’t read stuff purposely because I enjoy the communication that we all have and I don’t want to walk in here and be mad at you guys and be like, ‘I’m not answering that guy’s question because…’ (laughter) For me, it’s just business as usual and I’ll be excited if we ever win a Super Bowl here. That’ll be my excitement.”
(When you set up a roster the way you have this offseason and you go into a draft, are you more inclined to just go for needs or do you gamble more? Even though you have less picks, can you gamble more with the picks?) – “No. I think when you have as few picks as we do, you have to be right on them. I think you’ve got to be very deliberate and measured of what the roster and what that guy’s role on the roster is going to be and how he fits. Obviously, there will be an occasion where if that special guy is there to take that risk on something, you will. But I think when you’re picking third, fourth round and then two in the seventh, you have to make sure what you’re getting, who it is and how he’s going to fit on the team.”
(Talking about QB Tua Tagovailoa earlier, there was a shift from previously shopping around for a top quarterback to now putting a firm commitment into Tua. What lead to that shift?) – “I think as we finished the season here and going on as we were moving here and moving on to the coaching search, I think at the end of the day, we just decided as we were talking to each candidate – they were just talking about how much they had studied Tua and what they liked about him. All of them felt excited and wanted to work with him. They felt that they could win with him. I think as you go through those processes and those interviews, you kind of know if someone is just saying what you want to hear just because they want a head-coaching job or the level of detail when they talk about things and the history of the research that they’ve done that showed that they truly, really believed in him as we do. It was an exciting time and then once we hired Mike (McDaniel), it was full steam ahead.”
(I don’t know if you saw but after the Super Bowl, Rams General Manager Les Snead had an ‘F— them picks’ shirt after that. There have been some memes with you having that as well. I’m curious of your thoughts on that and maybe the trend of trading picks all in?) – “(laughter) Well, my kids have told me there’s been a lot of memes on me – both good and bad. (laughter) I think Les deserves credit for how they’ve done it. They won a Super Bowl. I’ve known Les for a long time and he has a very unique way of looking at things and it’s paid off. I still believe in building through the draft. I think the draft is an important part of building your team and having young assets to work through. We’ve shown that we will always be aggressive if it comes to acquiring a good player or at least attempting to, and we’ve done that. I would say that for us, the ability to get good players and where we were, for as young as we are on this roster right now, and knowing that we had the two first round picks in 2023, enabled us to be aggressive and make a move like that. We had talked to a number of teams about a number of players. We were being very aggressive across the league trying to find players. Tyreek was not one that I ever thought would happen and a lot of credit to Brett Veach and coach (Andy) Reid – working with them was great and I’m sure they were frustrated with us at times and we were frustrated with them but out ended up working out well.”
