Former New England Patriots safety and NFL analyst Devin McCourty didn’t hold back when asked about Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa publicly criticizing his teammates during NBC’s Football Night in America pregame show.
“I hated every bit of that,” McCourty said Sunday night on national TV. “I played in New England with Bill Belichick and Tom Brady and Coach Belichick used to talk about, when you have true leadership, it doesn’t need to be talked about. So, if there’s a problem, Tua, you’re a captain of this team, you’re the quarterback. Go handle it. Don’t sit there in front of a camera and talk to media members about guys messing up. Get in the locker room, call those guys out by name. If confrontation happens, that happens sometimes, but I think to come and air out your dirty laundry and let everybody know that there’s a problem — we know there’s a problem, you’re not winning football games. Go fix it in-house. Handle it that way. I think that’s true leadership.”
After the Dolphins’ heartbreaking 29-27 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday to drop the team to 1-5, Tagovailoa called out some of his teammates for being late or missing players-only meetings.
“We have guys showing up to player-only meetings late, guys not showing up to player-only meetings,” Tagovailoa said. “There’s a lot that goes into that. “Do we have to make this mandatory? Do we not have to make this mandatory? So, it’s a lot of things of that nature that we got to get cleaned up.
“It starts with the leadership in helping articulate that for the guys and what we’re expecting out of the guys. We’re expecting this. Are we getting that? Are we not getting that?”
Tagovailoa completed 21 of 32 passes for 205 yards, with a touchdown and three interceptions (54.8 passer rating) in Sunday’s loss to the Chargers.
“Shocked. Shocked,” Tagovailoa said after the game. “This is something that we’ve talked about collectively as a team, about being able to finish in games like this where we have the opportunity to win the game. And it’s not just one side of the ball. It’s every phase. I’ve contributed with the turnovers.”
The Dolphins visit the 1-5 Cleveland Browns on Sunday.
