Rare glimpse into private chat with Tua, Grier. And Dolphins tight ends tackle project.
A six-pack of Miami Dolphins notes on a Wednesday:
▪ Fox’s nine-part documentary series on Tua Tagovailoa offers something interesting that fans — or journalists, for that matter — almost never have access to:
Audio and video of the conversation in which a team’s general manager informs a player that he has been drafted.
Here’s how that conversation went down between Dolphins GM Chris Grier and Tagovailoa on draft night in April, courtesy of Fox:
Grier: “Hey Tua, hey, it’s Chris Grier from the Dolphins.”
Tagovailoa: “What’s up, Chris?”
Grier: “How you doing, man?”
Tagovailoa: “Doing good, how you doing?”
Grier: “We enjoyed getting to know you through the process, love how you play on the field, how you carry yourself off the field, the type of person you are and player. And we’re excited here to make you a Miami Dolphin man.”
Tagovailoa: “Thank you man, I appreciate it. Thank you Chris, I appreciate you guys, man. Thank you.”
Grier: “You did a great job, you attacked everything like you did, loved your story, done a lot of work on you, coach [Brian] Flores, our owner Stephen Ross; you will get on the phone with him next. Couldn’t be more excited to have you here.”
Tagovailoa: “Man I appreciate it.”
Grier: “Step 1.”
Tagovailoa: “Yes sir. Man I appreciate it. I can’t wait to get this thing rolling.”
Grier: “Excited as we are?”
Tagovailoa, chuckling: “I think I’m even more excited than you guys are.”
Grier, chuckling: “I don’t think so.”
Good stuff.
Fox will air the signature documentary “Tua” at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 6.
“Tua Talks,” the exclusive, complementary eight-episode digital series, launched this week on the new Fox Sports app and FOXsports.com. Three episodes have been posted; the other five will be posted in the days ahead.
▪ Dolphins tight ends Durham Smythe and Mike Gesicki did something mature and conscientious this offseason. Allow Smythe to explain:
“I think with me and Mike going into our third year here, we kind of took a step back after last year, and thought ‘How can we benefit this offense by something more than just what we’re good at personally?’” Smythe said.
“I think we worked this offseason a lot on trying to become more versatile – more multiple – which I think will eventually kind of eradicate some of our tendency-based things within our offense. Obviously I spend a lot of time talking to Mike talking about how he releases, routes, stuff like that. I’ve spent some time with him about the nitty-gritty in the run game. I think hopefully if we can both benefit in those areas, we’ll be a lot less tendency-based in this offense.
“I think mainly because of what we have physically – whether it’s size, speed, maybe a history with the run game or a history with running routes. I think that’s where a lot of the narrative comes out is that I’m the guy that’s going to come in and be the in-line blocker and he’s going to come in and catch all of the passes. Which, to this point, it has been. I think this offseason, going into Year 3, I think we understand the game enough to where we kind of took a step back and thought about how we can both become more versatile to benefit this offense as a whole. I think that’s something that hopefully... through this season, we can bring about.”
▪ Wide receiver Jakeem Grant said he’s willing to race running back Matt Breida to determine who really is the fastest Dolphin.
According to Next Gen Stats, Breida was timed at 22.3 mph on a touchdown run for San Francisco against Cleveland last season — the fastest recorded time of any NFL ball-carrier (runner or receiver) the past two seasons.
But Grant said he has no doubt he’s the fastest player on the team.
“I told Matt, I don’t care about him running a 22.3,” Grant said. “I don’t have to run full speed to beat guys to the end zone. I don’t have to do all that. I’m going to continue to say that. If he wants to race, it’s nothing. I’ll continue to tell him, ‘you’re not going to beat me bro. I’m just telling you.’”
▪ New safety Kavon Frazier made an impassioned speech on Wednesday about race relations in the wake of a police shooting of an unarmed Black man in Wisconsin. (Please check back for more on this later today.) Meanwhile, Frazier said he would love to have a greater role on defense in the wake of starting only two of 44 career games for Dallas.
But Frazier, who also has value on special teams, said he’s fine with his defensive role regardless. Frazier is competing with rookie Brandon Jones and others for the No. 3 safety role behind likely starters Bobby McCain and Eric Rowe.
Getting defensive snaps “is definitely important,” Frazier said. “I didn’t get the opportunity I wanted there. So here it’s definitely important for me to try to get on the field on defense. But I’m willing to do whatever they want me to do. There’s a lot of competition going on. I will be ready for the opportunity when it comes.”
The Dolphins weren’t permitted to work out Frazier during the pandemic, but his agent, David Canter, assured team officials that Frazier was fully recovered from a pectoral injury that sidelined him the final 12 games for the Cowboys last season. Frazier said he never spoke directly to any Dolphins officials before signing on April 28.
“It was an unfortunate time for me,” Frazier said. “I needed to be seen by teams to have teams trust I was 100 percent healthy. Even though it [the injury] was Week 4 last year, teams still wanted to see if I was 100 percent. I was fortunate to have them believe what we were saying and believe my agent that I was 100 percent and believe in me and what I could do on the field.”
▪ Smythe said the locker-room experience is peculiar, with players discouraged from getting close to each other and beepers going off if they do:
“It’s odd, especially being a guy that really loves that locker room culture,” Smythe said. “It’s weird not being able to just kind of come into the locker room, throw off your pads and go jump into a locker next to somebody else and start talking face-to-face right there. It’s definitely odd.
“You can still do that to an extent behind some glass, behind a mask and things of that nature; but for now, it’s what we have to deal with, so we’ll continue to do it and I think we’ll try to build a culture around it.”
▪ Quick stuff: Smythe’s initial thoughs on Tagovailoa: “He’s got a great arm. That’s evident to everyone immediately. He’s also a great teammate. He’s one of the guys already. He fits in great, (is a) smart guy and can make all of the throws. What jumps out at you immediately is he can put the ball anywhere he wants.”...
Smythe said new tight end Adam Shaheen “caught the offense — from a mental standpoint — very quickly. It’s been a very smooth transition for him.”
Here’s our Wednesday piece on what Brian Flores said today.
Here’s our Wednesday report with practice news and highlights.
This story was originally published August 26, 2020 at 1:46 PM.
