Tua Tagovailoa of the Miami Dolphins criticizes Brian Flores
Tua Tagovailoa of the Miami Dolphins criticizes Brian Flores
Former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores took two different approaches to dealing with quarterbacks Ryan Fitzpatrick and Tua Tagovailoa in 2020, Fitzpatrick said Wednesday in a conference call with reporters.
Fitzpatrick, speaking on a call to promote Amazon Prime Video’s coverage of Thursday night’s Dolphins-Bills game, was asked about comments Tagovailoa made on Dan LeBatard’s show last month. Tagovailoa sharply criticized Flores for telling him he “sucks.” He concluded that Flores was a “terrible person” to him during his rookie season. Fitzpatrick, an analyst for Amazon, was Miami’s starting quarterback for six games in 2020 before the team was handed over to Tagovailoa.
“I would say there’s a certain style that Flo trained, and he trained me differently than Tua,” Fitzpatrick said. “I would say Flo’s intention was to get the best out of Tua, and I think when you put his training style with Brian Flores in context with what Mike McDaniel did, which was come in and love him and tell him how great he is, it probably made it seem even worse than it probably was at that point.
“But I’m happy for Tua. I think Flores said it: He’s happy for Tua. He’s happy about the successes.”
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Fitzpatrick said there is a small group of quarterbacks in the league that he considers elite and another group just below that who can become elite. He placed Tagovailoa and San Francisco’s Brock Purdy in that second category.
“I think there’s been a lot of talk about bringing in coach McDaniel and getting him in the right system for his skill set,” Fitzpatrick said. “But the biggest development I’ve seen in him, and also talking to people in the building – and that’s not just players, but other people that work in the building – has been his maturity and now his leadership skills that Tua has. He’s outspoken. He gives speeches at halftime. Those are things I didn’t see and didn’t know really existed with Tua.
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“But I think with the new contract and the new ownership of this football team, he really feels like this is his team and they’re going to go where he takes them. And that was an exciting thing for me to hear about.”
Dolphins reporter Hal Habib can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on social media @gunnerhal.
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