After ESPN’s Ryan Clark criticized Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s physique earlier this week, Tagovailoa responded, essentially telling Clark not to talk about him like that, leading to Clark apologizing.
Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel was a big fan of the rebuttal from his quarterback.
Meeting with the media on Thursday, McDaniel said he was getting “annoyed” with the discourse. He continued via Pro Football Talk, saying, “If you want to talk about somebody that’s committed to doing what he’s doing for the right reasons, [Tagovailoa] was already invested before this year, but then taking a bunch of things that have happened, he really put an onus on controlling what he can control. So you want to talk about every metric that [strength and conditioning coach] Dave Puloka and his strength staff really track, which is pretty much everything to the degree of blinks, every metric of strength that is measured, he’s shattered his previous highs. And in some instances, he’s almost twice as strong with things and that’s been a daily commitment that he hasn’t wavered from.”
McDaniel didn’t stop the praise there. He also noted, “You’re happy for guys as a coach when you can see in the present that down the road, they’re going to have no regrets, meaning the results are what the results are, but you know that without any shade of gray that you’ve put your best foot forward, and he really he has. And I think his teammates would agree. We are getting the absolute best version of Tua that’s existed.”
Miami looked like a contender last season before Tagovailoa’s injuries, and if he can stay healthy this year, there’s no reason to think the Dolphins couldn’t make some noise in the AFC East.
