Tua Tagovailoa says 'terrible person' Brian Flores created self doubt

After an incompletion-free performance from Tua Tagovailoa in a preseason game against the Washington Commanders, Miami Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said it was “the least amount of nerves” he’s seen from his quarterback since taking the job in 2022.

It wasn’t always like that.

When McDaniel arrived, he was tasked with instilling confidence in a quarterback who was severely lacking in self-belief.

As McDaniel described his first impression of Tagovailoa in a recent interview with Kay Adams of Up & Adams, “I saw a guy that was kind of looking at me trying to figure how I wanted him to behave. Just a shy version of himself.”

On Monday morning, Tagovailoa appeared on the Dan Le Batard Show and shed some light on how he reached that point just a couple years after getting picked No. 5 overall in the 2020 NFL draft. And the quarterback pointed to the harsh coaching style of former Dolphins head coach Brian Flores.

“If you woke up every morning and I told you that you suck at what you did, that you don’t belong doing what you do, that you shouldn’t be here, that this guy should be here, that you haven’t earned this, right?” Tagovailoa told Le Batard. “And then you have somebody else come in and tell you, ‘Dude, you are the best fit for this. You are accurate. You are the best whatever. You are this or that. How would that make you feel?”

“If you have a terrible person telling you things that you don’t want to hear or probably shouldn’t be hearing, you’re going to start to believe that about yourself. That’s sort of what ended up happening.”

It doesn’t take much to read between the lines. The “terrible person” in Tagovailoa’s retelling of the last few years is Flores, who was fired by the Dolphins in January 2022 after three seasons as the team’s head coach.

Rumors that Flores didn’t want the Dolphins to draft Tagovailoa in 2020 have swirled and there were reports he was “very confrontational” with the quarterback during his tenure. Tagovailoa’s description of the situation lays that bare.