Tua Tagovailoa – November 23, 2022
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Wednesday, November 23, 2022
QB Tua Tagovailoa
(What are you thankful for this holiday season?) – “I’m thankful for a lot of things, very thankful for a lot of things. I would say I first off have to be thankful for my family, my parents, my siblings. I’m very thankful for my wife. I’m very thankful for our child that we have together. I am also very thankful for our coaches, our coaching staff. I’m thankful for my teammates, very thankful for the supporting staff that we have here – guys that work in the equipment room, the janitors that are around here, the kitchen people, everyone that is a part of this organization I’m very thankful for. I’m thankful for (our football communications) team with our media and how (they) handle business with that. There’s a lot of things to be thankful for, and we as an organization, as a team, we have it really good. So I don’t want to waste an opportunity like this to be very thankful to a lot of people that have helped not just myself but other guys in this organization become who they knew they could be and become successful. So I’m very, very thankful and I’m glad you asked that. I don’t want to miss that opportunity to tell all those people that I’m very grateful and very thankful for them.”
(If I could just follow up quickly, does your perspective on football or life or the holidays, does all of that change now becoming a father?) – “Yeah, it’s very unique how having a child impacts how you see things differently in life. It’s like nothing that I’ve ever experienced. There’s no playbook for this because everyone’s experience is different, whether you’re having a boy first or a girl. I thank my Heavenly Father up above that I got a boy first. (laughter) Oh, man. I don’t know what I’d do if I had a girl. It’d be a little harder, I think, because I wouldn’t know what to do necessarily. (laughter) Having been around cousins that have had kids that were boys, it kind of makes it a little easier that I have a boy myself with my wife. But it definitely changes the perspective on how I look at kids. I’ve always had a tremendous amount of heart for kids, but now that I have one of my own, you go home and the best thing is when you see them smile and laughing. It’s the best thing in the world. And that I can do that for someone else’s kid, I would want the same for mine when mine does get older, so it definitely changes.”
(I hate to pivot after that to football, but earlier we were talking to Head Coach Mike McDaniel about play-calling and everything that goes into crafting a gameplan. I was curious from your perspective, what his made Head Coach Mike McDaniel’s gameplan and play-calling so unique from maybe different coaching staff that you’ve worked with?” – “I would say with (Head Coach) Mike (McDaniel), it’s not necessarily I would say scheme to where, ‘Oh, this could potentially happen.’ I mean, it could, but more than likely we know that’s kind of what they will be preparing for. Week to week, we have some carryover, but a lot of things are new in our passing game and in our running game and our play-action game. So he’s always working on things that can grow the offense and help the offense. So there’s a lot of nuances to the offense.”
(As a follow up, I was just curious, have you been wearing like a different helmet in terms of, I don’t know what it’s called, but the different elements of protection around your mouth? Or is that the same?) – “No, it’s the same.”
(You’re obviously at or near the top in many NFL statistical categories – passer rating, completion percentage, yards per attempt. There’s a lot of good stuff. I’m wondering, the 13-2 record as a starter in your last 15 starts, how important is that to you in comparison to all the many statistics that there are?) – “I think at the end of the day, as a team, we want to win regardless of who’s at the top of what in their category or position. We just want to come out with wins. And I would say those don’t necessarily entail that being a stat that I take as a quarterback stat, because essentially, you need the entire team. You need our special teams to stop their special team, our defense to stop their offense, and our offense to go and put points on the board. So collectively, that’s a team stat. I’m very proud that up to this point that we’ve been able to win 13 games and only lose two in a league that’s very tough to win games.”
(Coming off a game where we saw RB Jeff Wilson Jr. really spark the running game; for you, obviously, that’s an important part of the offense. Was there a noticeable ease to the game with the running game going the way it was? And how positive of a sign is that moving forward in your eyes?) – “It’s awesome. You see the type of runner that he is. You see the type of runner that Raheem (Mostert) is. I mean, you can’t go wrong with any of the guys that are in there, but you can’t dismiss also what our line up front, what they were doing with understanding their assignment, knowing who to block on the different run plays, and then if we change the run to a different run, re-Mike-ing (Mike linebacker) it, knowing where to go, understanding that. I don’t think many people see that and appreciate that, but we do in the building. I do know that that Jeff (Wilson Jr.) and Raheem, they really appreciate that. So, it really is entailed of everyone working together and being in sync. And if not, that 10-yard play could have been a touchdown, or that touchdown, if not blocked correctly, could have been a 10-yard play. So, that’s how it always works, even for the passing game.”
(Going over the tape from the past few games, what have you come away most pleased with doing?) – “Most pleased with doing? That’s hard, because I would say me, I never look at what I did really well. I look at the things that I can get better with. The things that we do well, let’s continue to do that and find nuances on how we can get those plays in more, but get it in different ways.”
(What’s been the most important thing you’ve been able to learn from QBs/Passing Game Coordinator Darrell Bevell?) – “Very detail oriented. I would say my relationship with ‘Bev’ (Darrell Bevell) has really grown a lot. I, maybe three weeks, four weeks ago, I had him and his family come over to our house and we had dinner. We watched a movie as well, in the theater room. (He has a) great family. I think having someone of his personality where regardless of how cool you guys are, if you’re not on top of your stuff, he’s going to let you know. That’s kind of the relationship that I would say I have with him. Really good, but I know what he expects and what he expects I kind of expect out of myself as well.”
(I know you don’t like talking about things you’ve done well. But one thing has been anticipation. I’ve seen you kind of throw the ball to guys before they even got out of the breaks or to spots before they get there. I’m curious when you felt a level of trust in your offensive playmakers to be able to do that?) – “I would say that’s what we’ve been working on the entire OTAs and camp. That’s what we’ve been working on – anticipating it. If you look at our offense, that’s really what our offense is based off of. Anticipating and trusting that guys are going to be in the right spots, that they’re going to get to the right depth. Me taking the right drop to correlate with how deep they’re going in their route or when they’re breaking in, when they’re breaking out, when the ball should come out. That’s all an accumulation of all of that. And we’ve worked on that, like, numerous times. And that’s not just OTAs and training camp. That’s also the times we had leading up to training camp that we had to ourselves. We would all go out on our own and work on things like that and talk through them. So for us offensively, that’s nothing new for us.”
(Was there a time that you felt, ‘okay, this is where we want it to be like?’ Was there a period where it all started to click to what you guys want it?) – “Yeah, I would say maybe after the second game, I would say after the Baltimore game. That’s kind of when we all felt comfortable with who we were players-wise in the offense.”
(We see you and the receivers doing the handshakes and stuff every day in practice. I’m just curious how that came to be like. Was it your idea? Their idea? Just collectively?) – “I don’t know. (laughter) I really don’t know. I’m not even going to lie to you, I don’t know. I’m not even going to make something up. I was going to say maybe, but I don’t know. (laughter)”
(What’s going to be on your Thanksgiving plate tomorrow?) – “Oh my gosh. I don’t know what everyone’s going to make. But what I do like is I like some good stuffing. It depends on who makes it too … Well, everyone knows that they’re invited over to my house, but, probably only like six guys will show up. So, we’ll see.”
(Who is going to come over?) – “Brandon Jones always comes over with Bri. Jevon Holland, I think he’ll come over. He’s come over, I think – is this his second year? So he’s only come over once. So we’ll see if he comes over. There’s a couple other guys but we’ll see because some of them have their families in town as well too.”
(Who is in charge of the turkey though?) – “I don’t know. I’m not a big turkey fan. I do like ham though.”
(Just focusing on this week. I know you guys have the road trip coming up and coming off the bye, how important is it to just kind of stay locked in? I know coach was telling us how locked in you guys still are?) – “Yeah, it’s most definitely really important for us to stay locked in. We understand that we’ve had a bye and now Thanksgiving is coming up. Guys have family members coming in town. And you can get lost with not doing things that you would normally do on a weekly basis where maybe I’ll take this day off because it’s Thanksgiving and guys aren’t studying. I don’t think that’s the case for our guys. I know a lot of our guys were itching to come back. I mean, I was itching to come back. I had no idea what to do with myself last week, so I was trying to go to Panthers game, trying to do something to get my mind off of it. But it’s hard because you don’t want to go on a on a hot streak and then you go through bye. I almost wish we didn’t. But yeah, games like this, we understand that it’s going to be tough. We’ve looked at the film. We understand that Houston’s record doesn’t say a lot for them, but they play really hard. They play together as a team. We understand that this is going to be a tough one for us. So we got to be ready and prepared for them.”
(What was it like going to the Panthers game?) – “It was cool. I think that was like my fourth game. But that was my first time hitting the drum. It was awesome. It was cool. I might be bad luck though. I think at the first intermission it was (4-0). I was like we’ve got to go. These guys are doing bad because we’re here. I don’t know. I’m superstitious with that.”
(What about the Panthers’ reverse retro jerseys?) – “Oh, those jerseys were awesome. I’m very thankful that they gave me a jersey.”
