As Dolphins rookies report and COVID-19 testing begins, Tua Tagovailoa ‘ready to go’
Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s NFL career began in earnest Thursday with rookie training camp report day — which, becuase of COVID-19, was limited to testing and virtual meetings.
But before the nasal swabbing began, he took time to chat with USA Today.
The highlights from the interview, which the newspaper posted on its website Thursday morning:
▪ Eight months after breaking and dislocating his right hip, Tagovailoa said “I’m ready to go. It’s kind of those things where you start getting the itch to get back out on the field, to be able to compete. It’s going to be a new setting, so that’s what’s even more exciting.”
Tagovailoa has done no on-field work with the Dolphins in the three months since they took him with the fifth overall pick, but has been working out on his own. He’s also had access to the team’s training facility to rehab.
▪ It’s unclear when the Dolphins’ first full practice will be — pads won’t come on for nearly a month — but Tagovailoa is already preparing for a quarterback competition with Ryan Fitzpatrick and Josh Rosen.
He wants to play. But he also has admiration and respect for the incumbent he’s trying to unseat.
“Fitz could probably be my father,” Tagovailoa said playfully of Fitzpatrick, who is 15 years his senior. “... I have much respect for a guy like that. The way he takes care of his body, the way he takes care of things off the field. He’s a coach in the meeting rooms for the offensive line, the receivers. I mean, he has the mindset of a coach but the heart of player. He plays like a player but the way he thinks, he thinks like a coach. Being able to be under someone like that and learn under someone like him, I really think you can only go up with your game.”
As for the looming competition, Tagovailoa said: I think the way I stay myself is, I just go out there and do whatever I can to help the team. If helping the team looks like me being on the sideline and telling [Fitzpatrick] what I’ve seen, then that’s what it is. Or whoever the quarterback is out there.”
▪ Is Tagovailoa comfortable with the league’s COVID-19 protocols — which include daily testing to start?
“I’m confident in what the Dolphins are going to have us doing, as well as the NFL. I think they have the [players’ best interests at heart]. I’d say as of right now, we just don’t know the full details of what our schedule is going to look like from a day-to-day process yet, as well as a week-to-week process.”
Colbert gives back
Dolphins safety Adrian Colbert was an advocate for and supporter of foster kids long before he arrived in Miami, and that hasn’t changed now that he’s a Dolphin.
Colbert is donating $4,000 in adidas gear to foster kids at the SOS Children’s Village in Coconut Creek and His House Children’s Home in Miami Gardens. He said that the COVID-19 crisis motivated him to act now.
“Every year I try to give back a large amount of my adidas funds to people that are in need of these things. I could use the money for myself, but at the end of the day I get more satisfaction for doing things for others because we’re here to be of service to others in any way possible,” Colbert told the Miami Herald. “In 2018 I did a Christmas giveaway for 30-plus kids in foster homes in the Bay Area, we did a whole tour of the stadium for them and surprised them with a pizza party and bags filled with items from adidas. Plus adidas has always been very supportive of me giving back and so that makes it so much easier.”
▪ The Dolphins cut rookie defensive lineman Ray Lima Thursday after he notified the team he no longer wanted to play football.
Miami Herald sportswriter Barry Jackson contributed to this report.
This story was originally published July 23, 2020 at 10:27 AM.
