HONOLULU — At the end of his inaugural camp, the Miami Dolphins quarterback spoke to young football players about being in his shoes some day.
That day came pretty fast, in the literal sense.
Each of the 254 kids from 50 Hawaii schools at the free camp also received a pair of training shoes on their way out of Kunuiakea Stadium.
There’s a lot to like about Tua Tagovailoa. One of my favorites is that he’s always looking to improve, as a player and a person.
That’s as true now, approaching his fifth season in the NFL, as it was eight years ago, heading into his senior year at Saint Louis School.
We had a wide-ranging one-on-one interview that was more like a conversation on a sunny day in late July, 2016, after he had committed to Alabama. We talked about all kinds of things that day, even what it was like going to church with Nick Saban, which he had recently done for the first time.
On that same day, I also spoke with Vinny Passas, who has a long history of making good quarterbacks great and great ones even greater.
“Tua has initiative and he’s doing all the right things, ” Passas said after a workout that day. “I’m struggling with finding ways to get him better.”
It was a stunning statement to come from Passas. Given his status as a teacher of QBs, it was as if Aristotle had said the same of a 17-year-old philosophy prodigy.
Until a few weeks before that, a common knock on Tua as a college quarterback prospect was that he ran too much, and his passing was somehow flawed. But then he dominated the national summer passing camps and competitions, and his label was changed to can’t-miss, the best dual-threat quarterback prospect in the country.
Later that fall, he also answered the can-he-win-the-big-game question. In his third and final season as a starter Tagovailoa led Saint Louis to its first state championship since Marcus Mariota did it in 2010. There was no long wait at Alabama ; Tagovailoa came off the bench as a true freshman to win the national championship game over Georgia in overtime after the Tide trailed 13-0 at halftime.
But during his four years in the NFL as a first-round draftee of the Dolphins, doubts have resurfaced and remained—but with a couple of twists. Tagovailoa had the league’s most passing yards in 2023, but Miami has still yet to win a playoff game with him. The Dolphins have not fared well in late-season, cold-weather road games, and there’s also this : The QB previously thought of as too much of a runner now isn’t enough of one.
Crazy, right ? The game is different now.
Thanks in large part to Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, the prototype for NFL success as a quarterback has changed. Whatever stigma was attached to “dual threat ” when compared to “pro style ” is gone.
After his 2022 season was shortened due to concussions, Tagovailoa worked on protecting himself from injuries. This offseason, the speculation is that he’s training for more speed and quickness—so that he can be more of a threat to run, like he was in high school and college.
We have to say speculation, because he declines to talk about it.
“I’m not telling anyone what I’m doing this offseason, ” Tagovailoa told Hawaii reporters Saturday after the free camp at the Kamehameha campus.
I was there the other day, but I can’t tell you if he looks lighter than his 2023 listed playing weight of 227 pounds (up from 217 at the 2020 combine ). It’s the first time I’ve seen him in person since the parade for him at Ewa Beach after that ‘Bama championship his freshman year, six years ago.
Will there be another reason for a parade some year, after a Super Bowl win ?
Even if that does happen, Tua Tagovailoa knows there are some out there that will still find fault with him, and that they will let it be known.
His skin has been thick since he was a high school kid, eight years ago, when he said this :
“Everyone wants attention, and the best way to get attention is to get the guy who’s getting the most attention.”
