Tua Tagovailoa – August 10, 2022
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Wednesday, August 10, 2022
QB Tua Tagovailoa
(Earlier today, Head Coach Mike McDaniel talked a little about coming out a day early so you guys had time to build that camaraderie and team bond. I just wanted to get your perspective on being out here with the team for a whole week and the value of that?) – “It was good. We got to go out to dinner with a couple of the guys the first night. Also got to walk through the mall with the guys yesterday, with a couple guys, and then go to dinner again. I thought it was a pretty cool trip. It felt a little weird because we’re still in training camp, but we’re seeing every – we’re seeing the guys on an off day. That felt a little different for us, but it was cool to spend some time and then also be with the guys in preparation for a practice like this. So we were able to talk through some things that we don’t normally get to talk through until the day of practice.”
(Who’s picking up the dinner tab?) – “I actually picked up the dinner tab last night. That was a big dinner tab. (laughter) But it was good, everyone enjoyed themselves. I picked up the Uber, too. (laughter)”
(Where did you guys go?) – “We went to Ocean Prime.”
(How many people?) – “I can’t say. I don’t even know. I was barely talking to half of the guys, because everyone was kind of far away from each other.”
(What’s the biggest difference between practicing against yourselves and what’s the biggest takeaway from today?) – “I would say technique. Tampa’s technique is different than the technique that we face a lot in camp where we get a lot of press man (coverage). Tampa has a lot of off man (coverage), off zone (coverage). They have a fair amount of disguises with what they do, but they’re a really good team. We’re very fortunate, as a team, to come out here and be able to compete against some of the guys that played on the Super Bowl team two years ago. So it’s good work for us, and we’re looking forward to tomorrow.”
(They obviously have pretty talented personnel on defense. How do you feel today went for the offense?) – “I would say you can never be too high, you never get too low. We’ll obviously look at the film. I think there are some things operationally that we can work on – getting guys set, understanding the snap count, just little things. But I think for the most part, it was really good to build off of to go into tomorrow with.”
(Two-part question. So you walked through the mall in Tampa, you’re the Miami Dolphins quarterback and played at Alabama. Are a lot of people recognizing you? Not a lot of people recognizing you?) – “No, no, no. I don’t think anyone recognized me. No way.”
(Does that surprise you?) – “No, no, no. (laughter) Not at all. I was wearing – you just wear some shades, a hat and a hoodie. (laughter)”
(Are you serious? They didn’t recognize you?) – “Yes. Nobody recognized me. They recognized the other guys, but then I went to the bathroom when they recognized a couple of guys, or I just walked out of the store. (laughter)”
(Who did they recognize that they didn’t recognize you?) – “I don’t know. If you guys get to interview a couple of the other guys, you guys ask them that question and then they’ll tell you. (laughter)”
(The other part is you said it was a large bill, so help us.) – “Yes, anything over $1,000, that is, my gosh, that is a lot of money. That’s a lot of money.”
(So it was over $1,000?) – “Just over $1,000, yes.”
(Fair to say in Miami and Fort Lauderdale and you’re walking around, you get recognized there, right?) – “No, no, no, no, no.”
(No? C’mon Tua.) – “I mean, yes, of course. (laughter) Yes, but I barely go out. It’s weird because every time I go out, I try to find a gas station, when I have to put in gas, where I think no one is going to be at, and then when I do get out, everyone I feel like just starts coming and pulling up. No one, sometimes, knows it’s me. A lot of older people go to the gas station that I go to. So I like it, I love it. So it’s good. (laughter)”
(I know you’re focused on your reps against the Tampa defense while Tom Brady is on the other side going against the Dolphins defense. But with him on the other side, were you able to get a chance to talk to him, pick his brain a little bit, anything like that?) – “Yes, I was able to talk to Tom (Brady). We were talking on the side for a good bit. He was just asking how the offseason was. We were talking a little about golf at the same time. But for the most part, 23 years playing, that’s a long time. That’s a lot of knowledge, so I was asking him some things and he gave me some good insight on. I’m going to keep that between me and Tom. Then if you guys want to ask Tom, you can go ask him.”
(What’s something from Tom Brady’s game that you take away? What impresses you with what he does?) – “I would say Tom’s composure in the pocket. Nothing really rattles him. When you have a guy in your face, he’s just – subtle movements and throwing the ball. I would say those are top trait qualities in a really good quarterback with him, ‘Russ’ (Russell Wilson), Aaron Rodgers, all of those big time guys.”
(The Dolphins pursuing QB Tom Brady with the tampering, did you have any reaction to that at all?) – “No. I think I answered that last week.”
(I wasn’t there.) – “Sorry. Yeah, I think they were doing that in 2019, but then I came in 2020.”
(Well, also in 2020.) – “I mean, they picked me.”
(Yeah, well it was 2020.) – “So, 2020? It’s 2022. I’m still here.”
(2021 last year.) – “Yeah, I mean, I’m still here. To me, that’s all noise at this point.”
(Does anybody else leave a tip at least?) – “(laughter) No, no one helped me with the tip. No one helped me with the tip. No, because it’s – when you put the card in, there’s the custom tips that you can’t – the guys don’t carry cash, they just have their cards. So I just had to customize the tip.”
(Do they do that thing like they do in the Miami where they add the tip into the final bill and ask you for a suggested additional one?) – “I don’t know.”
(You have to watch that.) – “Dang, they might have got me. (laughter)”
(Who’s the biggest eater on the team?) – “Who’s the biggest eater on the team? Um, I don’t know. We have some big boys, but I don’t know. I’m not too sure. I couldn’t tell you.”
(Did you get the tiny Uber or did you get the UberXL?) – “No, I got the big Uber. I had to get the big Uber and I was the one sitting in the back. (laughter) I was like, ‘dang.’”
(Was this dinner your idea?) – “No, it wasn’t my idea.”
(How did it come together?) – “It was for a buddy’s birthday. There were a couple people’s birthdays yesterday so I’ll let you guys figure that one out.”
(OL Connor Williams told us earlier that the relationship between you and he is obviously an important one. I just kind of wanted to get your perspective on how it’s going with Connor whether it’s film study, out here in practice, and just kind of how you guys are developing that relationship.) – “Yeah, it’s been really good. Every time we see each other – I mean, I sit by him in our team meetings and we’re talking about getting the guys going for the day and then just snap locations on certain plays that will help us execute the play that much better. And then just our timing with everything. He’s taking care of the front, I’m taking care of the back end with things and just us being in sync will help this offense go.”
(In what ways have you seen the offensive line developing in general?) – “I think they’ve developed a lot. You look at our run game, it makes it a little harder for guys to really read keys with the o-line because of how much stretch we do, how much stretch action we do. So it puts a lot of stress on not the front guys, but the secondary guys as well with the linebackers getting them to come up and obviously replacing them with throws and then also deeper play-pass throws. So I think we’ve come a long way and I think the guys would also say that we’re not close to where we want to be, but shoot, it’s exciting for the guys.”
(Head Coach Mike McDaniel is also kind of going through these kind of game reps for the first time as a head coach. How’s today in this kind of scenario? How’s the communication and everything going? How’s it been?) – “Yeah, I think the communication has been good. We’ve had some miscommunication out there on some team periods, but one of our team rules is when you fail, failure is a chance for opportunity. So we’ve had many of those opportunities today to recover from a misthrow, a missed assignment, a missed cadence and it was against a good defense.”
(DE Emmanuel Ogbah basically said they remember what happened last year against the Bucs. I’m curious how much is it on your mind?) – “Yeah, I was on the sideline throughout the game. Any competitor would want to be out there to compete against a team like that and it was just unfortunate that I wasn’t able to be out there because of my injury, but I’m looking forward to this year. We got done with our first practice with them. We’re looking forward to tomorrow. We’ll come out and see what they bring new and see what we can do to improve.”
(What do you think about WR Tyreek Hill so far and how do he and WR Jaylen Waddle complement each other?) – “I think Tyreek is, shoot, maybe the fastest guy in the NFL. It’s been Keion Crossen because he’s had many kickoff reps so he gets vertical speed every time. Tyreek doesn’t really get to open it up as much. (laughter) But shoot, everyone loves Tyreek in the organization and I think him and Jaylen do a really good job complementing each other by one goes deep – if they’re doubling him, then we’ve got another speedster coming across and vice versa. But those guys also help other guys get open on our team.”
