Miami Dolphins starting quarterback Tua Tagovailoa got a strong vote of confidence from his head coach on Wednesday when Brian Flores took to the podium and reaffirmed that Tagovailoa was the team’s starter. Period. And yet after Flores’ doubled down on Tagovailoa, he was asked to triple down and commit to Tagovailoa as his Week 1 starter less than two weeks out.
“Yes. I don’t know if I can be more clear. I don’t know how many times – I don’t know how much more clear I can be here. Tua is the starter. Do I need to say it again? I will.”
Not much room for imagination there. This is all, of course, rooted in the persistent rumors regarding the Dolphins and quarterback Deshaun Watson; a storyline that has been unfolding for some eight months now — and likely offers no clear resolution.
Other than one.
Tua Tagovailoa can put all of the drama, debate and mystery to bed by making the most of his 2021 opportunity as the Dolphins starting quarterback. Go beat New England. And then beat Buffalo the following week.
Let’s see how much talk there is of Deshaun Watson in that scenario.
Which is exactly why Tagovailoa’s focus is where it needs to be: on the opportunity ahead of him.
“I think (a vote of confidence) means a lot with it coming from the head coach. The support that I have from him and from the team, it means a lot. But for me, I’m just focused literally on trying to get our guys ready for next week,'” said Tagovailoa.
“What’s funny is I heard (John Jenkins) just say he doesn’t have cable. I’m one of those guys that doesn’t have cable too. I’m not able to turn on my TV and watch what’s going on to see the news and whatnot. Now obviously I know social media is a big deal but really, I only hear about those things either from my agents or if it comes from (someone in the building) or if Coach (Flores) wants to sit down and talk to me about things like that. That’s kind of how I find out a lot of the talk that’s going on.”
The time for talk has long since come and gone — although the chatter will undoubtedly continue outside the Dolphins building. That is, of course, unless Tagovailoa can silence it with his play this season. The ball is in his court to do exactly that.