Tua Tagovailoa – September 4, 2024
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Wednesday, September 4, 2024
QB Tua Tagovailoa
(I wanted to ask about the 2019 College Football Playoff Championship. What do you remember about that game?) – “We lost.”
(Does it haunt you?) – “We lost, brother. Any time you lose any of those games, they stick with you, and I wasn’t happy about that performance, the way we came out as a team offensively especially, but it is what it is. You learn from all those mistakes and you grow from that, but it wasn’t a good memory.”
(Is there any extra motivation facing off against Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence on Sunday?) – “No, because I’m not playing him; he doesn’t play defense. I’m not playing against him. I’m playing against their defense, the scheme that their guy has for them and they’ve got a good scheme. They’ve got a good scheme.”
(It’s our first time talking to you since Head Coach Mike McDaniel got his extension, you got yours earlier. We see the smile on your face. How great is it to know that you two are linked here for the foreseeable future going into the season?) – “Really cool. It’s really cool. Any time anyone on our team, I’m speaking for myself and I’m also speaking for other guys, any time anyone on our team gets paid and is able to change their life and their family’s life, it’s always something big.”
(You mentioned the Jags scheme. What’s the process like for you of going up against a defense that has a new coordinator that doesn’t have any real tape that you can go up and study?) – “So for me, I study their players that they have. Although not the same scheme, just who’s good at covering, who’s someone that we think, OK, maybe we have a little more leverage with this guy in coverage. And that’s how I sort of base it off of just watching film on the guys that are on the field. Then you go back to New Orleans when he was the DC to the Falcons – we had a joint practice with them last year. There were guys that were on the team last year that played with him in Atlanta and then there were also some guys that were on the team with him when he was coaching the Saints, when he was the DC. So we got a good amount of information that we can collect from a group of guys in the locker room and then just watching tape.”
(Going back to Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence for a second. You guys, your paths are kind of similar. You were both highly touted coming out of high school, played at big programs, won national championships. Are you friends? Do you have a relationship with him? Do you know him at all?) – “We’ve crossed paths before. I’ve seen him on vacation a couple times in the Bahamas. That’s all I can say and there’s just a mutual respect between us there.”
(Do you remember the first time you heard the name Trevor Lawrence, like when you had an idea that he might be something really big?) – “I mean, leading up to the national championship, they had to win their game prior and so we knew of him and then in that national championship game, that’s where, really, I think he made a statement in who he was as a player and just in general. That was his freshman year, too. Him coming in the national championship game, leading his team and we had a really good Alabama team, too, and he did what he had to do and they killed us. (laughter) They killed us.”
(I’m sure it was different the way you build up, but at what point do you know in camp or as you approach Week 1 that “Hey, we’re ready for this? It’s been a long offseason; we’ve put everything in place and we’re ready to go for Week 1?”) – “You want to think you’re ready for anything, but you never know until you go out there. Schematically, we think we know what they’re going to do, but until we go out and run our plays and get a feel of what they’re doing with their run fits, with the back end in coverage, how they’re trying to marry both up with each other, you really don’t know if you are. You’ve just got to go out there, get a feel and like I said, they haven’t really put on film as a team what they do and what they do well. So I think it’s also for them, they’re trying to figure that out as well, too.”
(I asked Head Coach Mike McDaniel earlier the biggest differences between you from Year 1 to now when it comes to preparing for a game and he mentioned that you’ve refined your ability to absorb the complex verbiage of the offense and also how to divvy up your time and understanding that. What’s been key for you in getting to that point?) – “Just continuing to look over the plays, continuing to look over what we’re going to do, what we want to do throughout the week. First and second down, that’s what we’re looking over Tuesday the day of and then working into the night with third downs on Tuesday, so that today we’re ready for first and second downs and we’re already ahead of the chains, we’re getting ready for third downs. And it’s the same thing, it’s the same process. We don’t know what they’re going to do. It’s just all right, here’s plays that we’re good at; let’s go and see what they’re going to present to us, let’s run it and then we’ll get a feel from there.”
(You’re entering your third season with Head Coach Mike McDaniel. Your relationship I’m sure has evolved immensely. That synergy – better than ever I’m sure together on the sideline – how does that help you in 2024? How will you foresee it that the synergy that you have when it comes to moving that offense?) – “I think I’m seeing it a lot better. It’s a little clearer than it was last year. It’s a little clearer than it was the year before and continuing to grow in the offense, continuing to – we’re trying to continue to maneuver through a lot of the minutia that happens within his offense of a lot of guys moving and I think that’s all it is. Both me and him, I think we’ve both grown together in becoming more vocal together and then with our guys that we’re playing with, that we’re out there with.”
(One thing we keep hearing from your teammates is how much more vocal of a leader, vocal of a person you’ve been this offseason. Is that something that you’ve noticed within yourself?) – “I would say yes and I would say no. A lot of the guys know who I am off the field. Just on the field, it’s just I guess coming out now. That’s just what it is. I guess feeling more comfortable bringing my own personality onto the playing field.”
(Just to follow up so it’s not like – you didn’t come into this offseason with some concerted effort, like “I want to be more vocal,” “I want to make sure I talk more and pull my receivers aside?”) – “No, no. I would just say it’s just bringing my own personality into playing the game of football. That’s it.”
(Do you still approach a new season like you have something more to prove after you’ve proven so much the last two years?) – “Yeah, I think that’s how you’ve got to come into the season every year. You’ve got to come in with something to prove every time. Everyone else is – the rookies are, the 17-year vets are. So I don’t think anyone comes into the season thinking, ‘Oh, let me just see if this is going to be a season where I’m healthy, if this is a season where I could do good, I could be average or whatever.’ I think everyone wants to be really, really good at coming in this first week and trying to sustain that throughout the entire year.”
(You’ve got a whole offseason at maybe a little bit lower playing weight than you were last year. How much have you felt your mobility and maybe even your speed increase from where you were last year?) – “I would say it’s not anywhere near where I was at Alabama, and I say that with humbleness because I wasn’t as fast still at Alabama, but I was able to move a lot quicker when I was there. But I think after the hip injury, it kind of did take a toll still on my mobility, but I think I’m a lot better than I was last year and the year prior, so I feel a lot better.”
(Earlier this week WR Tyreek Hill was talking about the excitement level and I know every year has an excitement, but do you sense – he talked about it being a little different, that you guys feel like you’ve really evolved as a team and are ready to take that next step? Do you feel that as you enter Week 1?) – “Yeah, I do feel that. I say that just because of the practices that we’ve had, the intensity that we practice with going against our ones and the ones going against us. There’s been a lot of things that have trickled into the locker room that hadn’t happened in years prior and so I would say that’s just the feel of ‘Dang, this does feel different,’ and we’ve got some dawgs on the team.”
(To go back to QB Trevor Lawrence, what do you think of the way both your careers have taken off and also, he’s another guy that got paid this offseason?) – “Yeah, I mean congratulations to him and his wife. I think they just had a newborn, so congrats to them on that as well. When I’m trying to connect both of our journeys, I would say definitely two different journeys. Two different journeys, that’s for sure, but also there are some similarities in the way. But I think the way he’s handled everything that he’s gone through there in Jacksonville has been really commendable and has been really good for him, and as you can see, it’s worked out really good. So I’m very happy for him.”
(Going on to the leadership question from earlier, Head Coach Mike McDaniel kind of said he noticed an it factor in you I guess in regard to how the team responds to you when you speak up and when you’re vocal. I’m curious for you at what moment kind of did you realize that you had gained the respect of the team as a vocal leader?) – “Like the it factor? I’ve had the it factor. (laughter) No, I’ve had the it factor since I was in high school, then going into college, and then coming here. That’s how I’ve always viewed myself as – going out and competing. Yeah, very, very nice, very cool, calm collected, but inside just very competitive. So a lot of the guys know how I am and whatnot, but I guess it’s just only now showing that I’m becoming a little more vocal so that’s it.”
(You talked a lot about that excitement with the offense coming in and we’ve talked about it a lot as well with these rookies that have come in as well. Now with camp over and getting ready for that first week, how excited are you for these new additions with WR Malik Washington and RB Jaylen Wright and things like that?) – “It’ll be cool. It’ll be cool for them to get their first live reps in a game, and it’ll be cool to see how they respond to adversity. Everyone on the other side of the ball gets paid, too, and they know that. They know they’re going to have to bring their A-game every time they’re in there and just going to have to study up because we’ve got a good amount of stuff that are going in.”
