The dog days of the football offseason are upon us but don’t tell that to Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. During the weeks in between minicamps/OTAs and training camp, football players can do a variety of things to get their mind and body right prior to the grind of preseason football.
In most cases, civilians may not get a complete sense of what players do in their early summer weeks “off.” However, thanks to social media, these days it’s easier to be virtual flies on the wall or eyes in the sky, so to speak.
Some footage started floating around Dolphins’ Twitter of a practice session run by Miami’s polarizing third-year signal-caller. Perhaps one of the most scrutinized and overly-criticized quarterbacks in the NFL, Tagovailoa is out to prove doubters wrong in 2022.
So far, under a new cloak of confidence given to him by new coach Mike McDaniel, Tua is not only showing leadership abilities, his targets are following him. In what looked to be a half dozen Dolphins engaged in drills in the South Florida sun, Miami’s quarterback looked the part and even looked like a coach from certain footage.
Tagovailoa, with notes on paper in hand, dictated his instructions to his disciples, as they looked locked into their signal-callers words.
Jaylen Waddle, who was a teammate of Tagovailoa’s back at Alabama as well, was among the group of players working out. Waddle is coming off of a rookie season where he broke Anquan Boldin’s record for catches for a first-year player. Boldin caught 101 passes in 2003, and Waddle finished with 104 in 2022.
While the Dolphins played 17 games last season, one more than Boldin in 2003 of course, Waddle missed a contest, so his record stands with an equal amount of games played.
Back to the practice session, nothing gets Dolphins’ Twitter happier (and united, at that) than watching clips of players balling… especially when it’s not mandatory.