Tua Tagovailoa apologizes to Dolphins teammates for comments

Miami Gardens, Florida — dolphin quarterback tua tagovailoa Apologized on Wednesday for his comments after Sunday’s defeat chargersWhen he criticized teammates for being late to player meetings only.

Tagovailoa began his news conference Wednesday by apologizing for his comments and taking responsibility for the impact they had on his teammates.

“I made a mistake and I’m accepting that now,” he said. “I’ve talked to people on the team about it, talked to leaders about it, and they know my heart. They know the intent was right. But the intent doesn’t matter…when things are misrepresented or how the media wants to portray it, it leaves a void of silence and a lot of questions for the guys on our team who are now 1-5. We talk a lot about, ‘Okay, we’ve got to keep this going,’ Get excited to go to work, forget about the noise.’ And I feel like I added that to my people.

“I have to look at myself as a leader protecting the team. I don’t feel like I did that to the best of my abilities. I felt like I let the emotions of the game get to me game after game. And that’s something I can learn as a leader on this team and everything that happens at home needs to be protected and none of that should go out.”

Shortly after Miami’s 29-27 loss on Sunday, Tagovailoa was asked how players would keep from feeling sorry for themselves after a 1-5 start. He said a team’s player leadership needs to clearly define expectations for the rest of the team — and those expectations need to be met.

“We have people who come late to player-only meetings, people don’t come to player-only meetings,” he said. “There’s a lot involved. Do we have to make it mandatory? Don’t we have to make it mandatory?”

“There’s a lot of things of this nature that we have to clean up, and it starts with little things like that.”

Dolphins coach Mike McDaniels said Monday that Tagovailoa’s comments were “misguided” and made in an inappropriate forum.

many players including Rasul Douglas, aaron brewer And patrick pauldeclined to comment on Tagovailoa’s public message from Sunday, saying team issues should be kept in-house.

defensive tackle Zack SeilerJoe, who like Tagovailoa is a team captain, said everyone is “entitled to our opinion,” but otherwise said he didn’t want to criticize the quarterback.

McDaniels said he had no problem with players’ attendance at team meetings, and Tagovailoa’s comments were only related to the players’ offseason. The Dolphins had an issue with tardiness and absences from team activities last season, but many players and coaches say those issues are behind them.

“There were some things in the past that we’ve done absolutely fine,” Sieler said. “We have a lot of new guys on our team… and I think we have a lot of guys that want to buy in. They’re buying into the culture, they’re trying to do their best. We’re not making some of the plays that we need to make, and the best thing we can do is be present, provide every practice to really improve on those plays to make it as game-like as possible so that on Sunday we can start making those plays.” “

Tagovailoa said he made his original comments out of frustration, and that conversations with his teammates exposed him to viewpoints he had not previously thought about.

Miami is off to its worst start to the season since 2021, when it started 1-7 and finished 9-8 and one game out of the AFC playoff picture. Tagovailoa said the kind of adversity the Dolphins are facing has taught the players a lot about each other — but the bad start hasn’t torn them apart yet.

“I would say first and foremost that when you’re going through difficulties you discover who a person really is, right?” He said. “You have to look at, ‘Okay, does this person start pointing fingers? Does this person take it upon themselves every time? How does everybody else do that?’ I think this will give you good information about your team also.

“But I will say there hasn’t been any bickering or finger-pointing lately. There are some guys who are keeping their heads down, trying to work and trying to do their best to put us in the best position to win games.”