Tua Tagovailoa – December 14, 2022
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Wednesday, December 14, 2022
QB Tua Tagovailoa
(How tired are you guys just going into your third straight road game and being where you’re at in the season and understanding what’s at stake?) – “I would say a couple of the guys are a little worn out just with the time change of getting used to our sleep schedule in L.A. – the west coast time change – and then coming back and trying to re-calibrate everything and figuring out our sleep patterns again. Guys are tired but there have been a lot of adjustments to the schedule that have accommodated sleep schedules, where there’s a later start time that we had today. And it will be the same tomorrow and Friday. But in the grand scheme, we want to do something special here and (the time change) is not really the big emphasis for us. We’re trying to get some things corrected so come time Saturday night, we’re ready to go out there and play the football we know how to play.”
(Head Coach Mike McDaniel said he’s not paying too much attention to the weather. Obviously you’re prepared for whatever may occur. But as a quarterback, what are you trying to be mindful of, especially with what the forecast could be for Saturday night?) – “I think for me, it’s understanding that it could be many things. It could be snowing. It could rain. I don’t know. I think for me at least, I can speak for myself, it’s a mindset thing. And if I’m too focused and worried about if it’s too cold, can I grab the ball, can I not, then I would say I’m focused on the wrong things. It would be hard to play that way going over there against a really good team.”
(Have you tried any special cold weather gear? Tom Brady famously wore a scuba outfit.) – “No, I’ve never tried that. I would say I’ve done the cold tub many times. (laughter) I did the cold tub out there in L.A. and it was outdoors. It was already cold. Just to kind of get my body used to it in that sense. Although it won’t necessarily simulate that. I just try anything and everything that I can.”
(What can you take away from your previous experiences in cold weather games?) – “Well, I would say one, not necessarily being too focused on that. That was sort of the case the past couple of years. Just worrying about the right things.”
(Did you tell us back in the spring you actually went to a cold weather location?) – “Yeah.”
(Can you tell us the story about that?) – “Yeah, I went to Maryland to go visit my brother after the season, and it was pretty cold up there. It was probably in the 20s and there was snow on the ground, too. So I got to test that out. I got to throw up there with a couple of his guys. That was good.”
(What did you learn from that experience?) – “I think – I mean me personally, it might be a mindset thing too but it felt really good throwing it while it was snowing. I don’t know. I can’t give anything more than that. I didn’t feel any effects of throwing in the snow.”
(Have you seen snow before?) – “Yeah. It snowed in Alabama my first year. It snows in Alabama guys. (laughter) People don’t know that. Some people just think it gets cold but it does snow. (laughter)”
(You’re coming off a two-game losing streak. I’m just curious, how does Head Coach Mike McDaniel’s style after a losing streak different than Coach Saban’s? Are they different? The same?) – “Yeah, I would say they’re different in the way they approach things but similar to where they want to go within the message. But they get to it different ways. The tone is different. The way the message is portrayed and said is different with the way our head coach would say it compared to Coach Saban. It’s different but essentially they get to the same end result of what they want to say.”
(Some of the football analysts were breaking down the film on TV, and they said that the Chargers, for example, used inside leverage and sticky coverage with deep safety help to take away the middle of the field and limit your favorite throws. What is the way to defeat that?) – “Well, I think first just coming out the gate is just getting completions, finding the rhythm of the game for the guys up front, for the receivers, for myself and not just always wanting to take deep shots, essentially, even when it’s not there. So I would say regardless of the coverages, I think we have good enough or more than good enough players to account for whatever routes they have, and me being the distributor, I’ve got to give them those opportunities.”
(What do you want to work on as far as if you come out in the game and maybe the first drive or two the completions aren’t there, but having a “short memory” and coming back out and sort of remaining settled for the rest of the team?) – “I would say it was a good lesson last week for all of us. We look at the tape, and the cool thing is there’s no like, ‘it’s your fault. It’s your fault.’ It’s all everyone kind of holding themselves accountable, like, ‘Oh, no. This is my fault on this play.’ And then guys would be like, ‘No, no, no. It’s not your fault. It’s my fault.’ I think that’s a step in the right direction for us as a team, but the next play mentality definitely needs to show itself more evident for us with the way we play offensively. Because of the success that we found early in the year, we really haven’t been given that opportunity. And so kind of given the two losses that we had to endure, that’s an opportunity for us to kind of continue to preach that and work through that throughout these practices and leading up to the game.”
(I know a lot of the narrative coming into this year was about you pushing the ball down the field. You guys have done that well. You just mentioned taking the easy throws. Can you take me through maybe what that balance is between wanting to push it down but also maybe hitting the back in the flat?) – “Yeah, I would say just with what the progression of the play gives us a lot of the times is we’re not trying to chase these deep throws, but they’re always within our progression. So that’s really essentially what it is. We’re kind of seeing two routes as one if it’s a deep play and then checking it down. But a lot of the times, this year when we found success, the first read on a deep route would be open. So essentially, we never needed to check it down a lot this year. It’s good lessons that we’re learning now in the season, getting into the grind time of the schedule. It’ll be good to just continue to fall back and resort to the things that we’ve been taught to play the position, which is take what the defense gives you.”
