Everybody who has spent time with Tua Tagovailoa this spring says the Miami Dolphins quarterback looks more comfortable in Year 2.
And that makes sense, based on how not-so-great Tagovailoa felt during much of his rookie season.
“I wasn’t as comfortable just in general,” Tagovailoa said Wednesday, following OTA practice in his first news conference since the 2020 season ended.
“I wasn’t comfortable calling plays. I think the guys that were here last year were phenomenal. I just didn’t have the comfortability of checking plays, alerting plays and doing that. I just rode with the play, even if I knew it wasn’t going to work. I was going to try to make it work still.”
Tagovailoa went on to clarify those comments:
“I didn’t actually know the playbook necessarily really, really good and that’s no one else fault but my fault. Our play calls were simple when I was in. I didn’t have alerts and checks. Where now, I feel comfortable and I can maneuver my way through these things now.”
A refresher on his rookie season, for those who somehow forgot:
Tagovailoa went fifth overall to the Dolphins despite suffering a catastrophic hip injury five months before the draft. His surgery rehab went well enough that he was good to go for training camp and, after sitting behind Ryan Fitzpatrick for the first weeks of the season, took over the starting job.
He was OK, but not great, in his nine starts: 64.1 percent completions, 1,814 yards, 11 touchdowns, 5 interceptions and an 87.1 passer rating.
When he was good, he was excellent. But when he was bad, the Dolphins could barely move the ball, and as a result, got benched late in two games.
That, along with speculation early in the offseason that the Dolphins would trade for Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson, has led to an anti-Tua narrative in some quarters that teammate Mike Gesicki said Wednesday is “stupid [and] uneducated.”
“The problem with the criticism is there’s nothing behind it,” Gesicki added. “The kid came in here and people were already calling for him. He played nine games, and he did a lot of really good things for us, stepped up in big situations, made plays and I think got better each and every week and now everybody’s talking about his confidence and how he looks this year.”
A slight complication to Gesicki’s message: Tagovailoa is toughest on himself.
He held nothing back again Wednesday.
When asked what parts of his game were not up to his standards as a rookie, Tagovailoa responded: “Every aspect.”
And while he reiterated Wednesday that he “was not worried” about his hip in 2020, there’s little doubt that he wasn’t his best self — partially because of his health, partially because of COVID-19 practice restrictions and partially because it’s really hard to play quarterback in the NFL as a rookie.
As for whether the world didn’t see the real Tagovailoa last season due to his mending health, he replied:
“I think that brings up a lot of ifs and buts. What happened last year, it happened. That’s my rookie year looked like. It wasn’t what I expected. That’s why I’ve been working really hard this offseason to help our team this Year 2 for me but this upcoming season.”
Those concerns are long gone, as evidenced by his bulked-up physique. Tagovailoa has also spent the past few months working independently with his receivers and offensive line.
“I’d say I can feel it — that’s one thing I can say,” Tagovailoa said. “And also from recordings, I can see the difference. But as far as in how I feel overall, both physically and mentally, I think I’m at a better stage than I was last year.”
