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Tua Tagovailoa – December 13, 2020 (Postgame) Download PDF version

Sunday, December 13, 2020
Postgame – Kansas City

QB Tua Tagovailoa

(What’s your feeling leaving this game knowing that coming into the depth chart was pretty depleted, that you guys suffered injuries throughout the game on offense, and that you were still able to produce 300-plus yards, have those drives in the fourth quarter?) – “I’m very confident with whatever guys that I’m playing with. I get to get a good amount of reps with a lot of the guys because starters, they go one hard rep, and sometimes they’re nicked up. So for timing purposes, they take one rep, two reps here, and then I’m with these other guys. I think those guys did a great job stepping up in this game because a lot of guys were down, but I mean, regardless, it’s just never a good feeling when you lose no matter who’s in there.“

(I want you to take us through the fourth quarter. You were down 20, and that CB Xavien Howard interception kind of gave you new life. What was the key to you guys moving the ball so effectively, and I guess how much does it hurt to come up short?) – “It hurts a lot to come up short. Like I said, what we want to do is we want to win the ball game at the end of the game. We want to score one more point than the opposing team, which we obviously didn’t. But I think the defense gave us many opportunities – not just in the third quarter, some in the fourth quarter as well – but offensively we didn’t execute the way we should have, and I know a lot of that falls down on me with the leadership with these guys in the third quarter. Not taking what the defense is giving me, just pretty much plain rookie mistakes and you can’t do that against a Super Bowl-caliber team like the Chiefs. So a lot of the execution really started from me, and I think our guys played their butts off. Offensively on the o-line, they played their butts off. The receivers played their butts off. It was really just me executing with the guys.”

(I wanted to ask you about TE Mike Gesicki. Can you talk about how your relationship is coming along in a positive fashion? And also how concerned you are with him getting hurt like that.) – “Me and Mike’s (Gesicki) relationship has been growing in practice. I think my relationship with other guys has been growing as well – timing routes with the guys. Whatever tight end is in there, whatever receiver is in there; I think it’s getting better. But regardless who gets hurt – it’s sad that it had to be Mike, but you really feel for your guys. I had the opportunity to go in after the game and see Mike and talk to him, and he’s really hurting, but I just told him my thoughts and prayers are with him, that the rest of the team is praying for him. There were a group of guys that also came after me, too. You just hate to see that for someone like him.”

(You talked about maybe some of the rookie mistakes you had early, but then you played really well in the second half, particularly the fourth quarter. What do you see maybe as the difference in the first half and the second half really over the last two weeks?) – “The biggest difference is execution. That is the biggest difference. I don’t know how else to put it. We had many opportunities offensively, and I wasn’t able to execute those plays with our guys, and this is the result of it. We run out of time, and we’re just put in a bad position. You can’t win games doing that.”

(Could you describe the opportunity, what it was like going back and forth with Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes and did you share a moment with him, either pregame or postgame?) – “After the game, I got to say what’s up to Pat (Patrick Mahomes). You know, we exchanged a few words, congratulated him, but for me, it’s not more so me versus Pat. We go into the game preparing for their defense, not their offense. Going into the game, we’ve got to execute against their defense. We know their offense is a high-scoring offense, but they’re really good in all three phases of the game. So we knew we had to – every opportunity that we had, we had to go in and at least put some points on the board. Unfortunately, that’s not how it was.”

(You guys mount that spirited comeback there towards the end, and it comes up just short, but I want to go back to when it was 30-10 and what the mood was like on the sideline and what your role was in kind of getting the guys up and trying to get that rally together to make that comeback push.) – “Really our mantra was ‘one play at a time.’ Offensively, I think defensively as well; just play one play at a time. We had a lot of time. It was 30-10, and it was still the third quarter. We still had a good amount of time, but then, like I’m going to say, it falls back on execution. Third quarter offensively, we didn’t execute the way we should have. We came out in the fourth quarter doing a lot better, but we ran out of time. You just can’t do that in this league.”

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