Tua Tagovailoa – June 2, 2022
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Thursday, June 2, 2022
QB Tua Tagovailoa
(How would you assess your performance the last two days and how you kind of rebounded today?) – “Yesterday’s practice wasn’t up to the standard that I know our offense can compete at and it obviously starts with me. In particular, there were some ball placement deals that I didn’t particularly like yesterday. I think (today) was a lot better. There’s still some things that weren’t up to par, to our standard. But I think it was a lot better from an offensive standpoint.”
(How hard on yourself do you get about ball placement? Head Coach Mike McDaniel mentioned that. How do you work on that?) – “Yeah, I think I’m pretty hard on myself every time whether it’s throwing a ball where it needs to be or pre-snap operation – guys aren’t set, guys aren’t where they’re supposed to be – because in order for the offense to function, we’ve all got to be on the same page and in order for us to execute at a high level, we’ve got to do things at a high level. So I’ve got to be hard on myself. Mike (McDaniel) is a little different. Mike is always trying to encourage you and trying to keep you going so for me it’s a little backwards where I’m used to being hard on myself and the coach getting hard on me, too, whereas I’m getting hard on myself and he’s trying to tell me, ‘Hey, it’s going to be okay. We’re only in May. We’re only in June.’ There’s a lot more time to grow, but…”
(What’s that been like for you?) – “It’s been cool. It’s been different. Like I said I’ve never been around a coach like this who’s just extremely positive. Growing up, my dad’s always been hard on me. My high school coach has been hard on me. Coach (Nick) Saban has been hard on me and all the coaches that I’ve had prior, they’ve all been hard on me. He’s (Mike McDaniel) hard, but he takes another alleyway, if you will, on kind of teaching and helping.”
(There was a quote yesterday in a story that came out that when you said that you think you’ll be able to push the ball downfield more as opposed to last year because last year there just weren’t really plays designed to do that. Can you kind of elaborate on that and maybe what differences you see with this offense?) – “Yeah, if you’ve seen the third to the last play we had – I don’t know if I could throw the ball downfield still, but by my account I think that might have been a touchdown to Tyreek (Hill). If not, then we scored two plays after that to Tyreek. So however you want to write down any of that to social media or whatever outlets you guys are with, you do so.”
(Can you talk about your timing overall with WR Tyreek Hill and is there a play outside of that that stuck out today that you think shows your timing?) – “It’s pretty cool having a guy like Tyreek (Hill), but you have other guys that are extremely talented, very fast as well that kind of help out with Tyreek being open. You have (Jaylen) Waddle, you have (Mike) Gesicki; so everyone has to cover every part of the field and it should be a lot easier to get these guys the ball. Although playing against our defense, it still gets tough.”
(Back to Head Coach Mike McDaniel, it seems like he’s very in-tuned with a lot of things with this team from him wearing hoodies and sweatshirts and sweating out here so he can mimic that and then even the music – he lets you guys pick music by being the player of the day. Just talk about that, just him being an in-tuned guy.) – “Yeah, swaggy. That’s what I got to say about Coach Mike (McDaniel). I call him ‘Mystic Mac.’ Just like Conor McGregor, this dude, he loves to predict stuff. So call him ‘Mystic Mac,’ but the respect that he has in the locker room, it’s tremendous. The guys love him.”
(You mentioned earlier about the narrative about the arm strength. What do you think about that that every time somebody talks about you, it’s that you can’t throw deep?) – “Like I said, all the bad news I hear from (our communications staff). (They) tell me, ‘Hey, I don’t know if you heard about this, but they said…’ I’m like, ‘Why would you want to bring that up to me?’ (laughter) But (the staff) brings it up just so I’m aware with the questions that you guys are going to ask me. For me, it’s just zone that out. We come out to practice; everyone else – Twitter warriors, keyboard warriors, whatever you want to call them – they’re not out here practicing with us working hard. So I don’t know if you guys recorded that last one to Tyreek (Hill).
(We aren’t allowed to shoot it.) – “(laughter) Well, I don’t know about you, but that looked like money. (laughter)”
(You said in that interview that improving your strength to be able to put more on your downfield passing was an emphasis this offseason. How much was, how critical was that for you as a goal this offseason?) – “I wouldn’t say I put the most emphasis on my downfield throws this offseason just because learning the offense was kind of the biggest thing – getting guys set, motions, landmarks with receivers, timing. I think it works out better that way. Whereas if guys are where they’re supposed to be, pushing it down the field, it’s not something we’re forcing, it’s something that’s there.”
(Head Coach Mike McDaniel said that you’ve found your voice here. It seems that you – it’s obvious you’ve found your voice. Do you feel that way right now at this point?) – “I would say I’ve shown glimpses of coming out of my shell with Coach (McDaniel), but – I can be myself. That’s all I can say.”
(You said that you get down on yourself, but you have been the practice player of the day and you’ve gotten to wear that orange jersey. Some of the guys said they could appreciate your music and they said you came out here with some Hawaiian. Just talk about the flavor that you brought to the music.) – “Yes, well I tried to bring a mixture of flavors. I brought some Hawaiian music. I brought some Isley Brothers. I brought some, let’s see, I had ‘Return of the Mack’ – who sings that again? If you guys say the name, I promise you I’ll…”
(Mark Morrison.) – “Oh yes, yes. Heck yeah! (laughter) So we’ve got it right there. We also had some KC and The Sunshine Band…”
(Kodak?) – “No, no, sorry. Sorry. Hey Kodak, ‘gleeful.’ (laughter) But we did have some Bee Gees. We had some Shaggy. We had some country. But I would say I love the flavor, the palate of music that I hold.”
(You talked earlier about having people, coaches, in your past, who were hard on you throughout the years. We like to talk about players having buttons to push and certain players respond to different things, do you respond to people being hard on you or encouraging you better, do you think?) – “I think I’ve been playing football for so long to where the standard has been set for me at such a young age with the way my dad has kind of coached me. Then even at the college setting, I was more afraid of what my dad would have to tell me after the game than Coach Saban. And it still is a little like that in the NFL but for me, I have it embedded in my mind that regardless of how another coach feels about the way I practice or I play, I know what I’m capable of doing.”
(What did it mean to you a couple of weeks ago when WR Tyreek Hill posted all of the practice clips of the downfield passes?) – “He posted them? I didn’t know that. I personally didn’t know that. Were they on the money? (laughter)”
(With letting your guard down, when did you notice you maybe needed to do that and you felt comfortable doing that like Coach McDaniel was talking about earlier?) – “I would say that’s just something that Mike (McDaniel) would always try to get me to do is just open up to him. In the hallway or in the meeting room, he would just pop in. When I’m lifting, he’d just want to chat. (laughter) Every opportunity he got. I ended up opening up a little bit to him.”
(Does that bleed into the way you are with your teammates? Even the media? Does any of that go hand-in-hand?) – “I would say the way I am, the way I share things with him a little is sort of similar to the way I share things with the guys in the locker room. The comfortability with him is getting pretty comfortable.”
(Do you consider yourself guarded?) – “Yes, I do.”
(Why?) – “I’ve always been like that, ever since high school. Yeah, I’m just not one to ‘Hey, we’re friends,’ after shaking hands. I’ve got to really get to know you, really get to understand and feel comfortable.”
(Would you say this is the most open you’ve been since you’ve been here?) – “With the media? Yes. (laughter)”
(What’s it been like learning your third offense in as many seasons? Any fun study habits or anything you’ve kind of perfected at this point just to learn the new terminology and those sorts of things?) – “Yeah, I would say the study habits, I’ve got a white board at home that I just write down all of the formations, I write down all of the motions and I have my brother or a family member or someone that’s at my house tell me the formations and tell me the motions. What I also do is I invite the guys over to my house and we walk through plays, we walk through formations and we barbecue.”
(You give them snacks?) – “Food? Yeah. The snacks don’t work with them. (laughter)”
(Earlier you mentioned the defense. You kind of smirked about how tough they could be to go against. How has that been for you going against those guys and how does that help you improve your game?) – “It’s really good. It’s tough because they know what to expect a lot of the times with what we’re running, whether it’s a play (action) pass, a run play, gap scheme run plays or downfield passing. Third down has been tough for us against them just because of the variations of (cover) zero that our defense has and runs. But that’s what you want. You want a challenge.”
(There’s a lot of talk about the downfield passing but on the short and intermediate stuff, especially with how Mike McDaniel likes for the guys to block up front, how does that change your passing lanes, especially when you’re rolling out?) – “It changes a lot of what we do because we have full flow of the defense because we run the ball a lot with outside zone. We have inside zone. And then when you have guys coming back across – it’s hard for (defensive) guys to key their guys when they’re also trying to read run. So the throwing lanes coming backside, it looks good.”
