MIAMI GARDENS — As Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s comments following Sunday’s loss to the Los Angeles Chargers made national storylines, coach Mike McDaniel said Monday his quarterback was wrong to air those thoughts out in the public.
After Sunday’s game, Tagovailoa made a point to note that teammates were showing up late to players-only meetings, appearing to attribute it as a reason for the Dolphins’ 29-27 defeat.
“Regardless of intent and what was on Tua’s mind after a loss, as the franchise quarterback, that’s not the forum to displace that,” McDaniel said Monday. “I think he knows that now.”
McDaniel adjusted his tone Monday after he leaned more to backing Tagovailoa when he spoke minutes after Tagovailoa at Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday. He said he didn’t know the full context of his quarterback’s comments at that point in time.
“It sounds like there was something on his mind with regard to the specific meetings with a couple individuals that he was trying to get corrected by being direct with communication,” McDaniel said Sunday after the game. “Clearly, he’s sending a message, but from my standpoint, everything that I’ve asked of the guys, they have delivered on, and so I’m sure whomever he’s talking to, they’ll deliver, as well, as he’s a direct communicator with his teammates.”
Tagovailoa immediately began addressing teammates over the misguided decision between Monday and Sunday night.
“He has communicated with a lot of guys, starting with last night, and that’s what teammates do,” McDaniel said. “Heavy is the crown of franchise quarterback. … You live and you learn.”
Other players reacted Monday, acknowledging their quarterback shouldn’t have chosen the path he did.
“I feel like things that happen within the team should stay between the team,” center Aaron Brewer said. “Overall, anything that happens within the building or anything we talk about with each other should stay between each other. It’s not for the outside world.”
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Added left tackle Patrick Paul: “As far as things like what he says and stuff that’s going on in the locker room, I kind of try to just keep those things out of the media’s part of it. I think that’s something that we should handle internally. And I don’t think that we should be, you know, giving out all the details to that. So I’m just going to keep that internally.”
Brewer added he feels players are holding each other accountable at Dolphins facilities, but they can improve in that area.
“Yes, I believe so,” Brewer said. “But I also personally always believe there’s always room for improvement. And so we haven’t been getting the results we’ve been wanting. So it’s always something needs to step up and be a little better in some areas.”
McDaniel reiterated that what Tagovailoa brought up was “completely separate” from last year’s issues with player tardiness to team meetings.
He said it wasn’t something he felt contributed to the loss to the Chargers.
“I don’t want to speak for Tua,” McDaniel said. “He’ll obviously get asked about it and be very candid. I wasn’t worried about the result of the game being determined by the extra, outside-of-all-things-scheduled film sessions with players. I think that’s at the crux of the issue. Inherently, it’s got to assume you’re attaching reasons for failure to that. I’ve got a lot of things to worry about, and one of them is not those comments and where our team is lying after that.”
Added veteran defensive tackle Zach Sieler: “We have a lot of guys that want to buy in, they’re buying into the culture, they’re trying to put their best foot forward.”
Tagovailoa is next scheduled to address the media on Wednesday, his usual mid-week interview day.
