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.”
