The best analogy of offseason about Tua. And Dolphins’ Grier offers more insight on Hill
A six-pack of Miami Dolphins notes on a Friday:
▪ Leave it to ESPN analyst and former NFL safety Ryan Clark to craft the best analogy of the offseason for what the Dolphins have done for Tua Tagovailoa.
“Growing up, Sundays were my favorite day of the week and here’s why,” Clark said on “NFL Live” this week. “We would go to church very early in the morning. I was Southern Baptist so if you go to church at 8, you’re not leaving until 11:30…
“My parents were going to take me to Picadilly’s [cafeteria chain]. When you go to Picadailly’s, you had all that food there for your disposal. You could get the Dilly plate. You could get two sides. You could get fried chicken. You could get a bun.
“Tua has got everything. He’s got the bun. He’s got the fried chicken. He’s got carrot souffle. He’s got mashed potatoes and gravy. But he’s got to feast. If Tua isn’t a large part of this team getting to the playoffs, competing with the Buffalo Bills and having a chance to do damage, he is done.
“They have given him everything he needs not only to compete, but to excel. And if he doesn’t, that is on him. And I believe they’ll have to make a decision to go in a different direction at this position.”
▪ ESPN’s Marcus Spears chimed in, of Tagovailoa: “We’re not asking you to do much. We’re asking you to make three or four good throws a game. This offense is going to take care of you.
“You need to show up when those moments are critical and high-leverage and operate the offense and sometimes, play outside of your mind. If Tua can do that at the right times with the weapons he has, there should be no doubt Tua can lead this team and have them as [contenders].
“The money that has been spent… This is all set up for Tua to take the next step and prove everything. If he does, Miami has got something cooking. If he doesn’t, Ryan and I will be Picadilly’s and Tua will probably be with us.
“We’ve given you a platter, bro. We’ve given you all of these options. It’s all there for Tua. You’ve got two guys where you can throw a 5-yard pass and he can go 80 two or three times a game. That’s going to show up as Tua’s passing yards at the end of the game.”
▪ Former Dolphins receiver DeVante Parker, in his introductory Patriots news conference, said: “I chose to get traded here. My agent [Jimmy Gould] hit me up, just telling me what the situation was, and the options I had for the teams to go to. The first on my list was the Patriots. I’m just excited we were able to get everything done.”
The Dolphins say the Patriots were the most aggressive suitors for Parker, but they also wanted to try to accommodate his wishes.
▪ Besides his elite skills as a left tackle, newcomer Terron Armstead has impressed Tagovailoa in other ways.
“His leadership, his being a veteran in the league, him knowing so much and playing under a quarterback like Drew Brees prior, and then him being able to help me lead the offense, pull guys to the side and do certain things,” Tagovailoa said.
“Just his leadership. He hasn’t been out to practice yet, but just him being around the building, he’s a really nice person. He’s a really good person.”
▪ Dolphins general manager Chris Grier was asked about Rams general manager Les Snead wearing a T-shirt saying “[Expletive] those picks” – a reference to the Super Bowl champs having traded multiple first-round picks for Matt Stafford and Jalen Ramsey in recent years.
Does Grier agree with that approach, in light of trading first- and second-round picks (and lesser assets) for Tyreek Hill?
“Well, my kids have told me there’s been a lot of memes on me — both good and bad,” Grier said. ”Les deserves credit for how they’ve done it. They won a Super Bowl. I’ve known Les for a long time and he has a very unique way of looking at things and it’s paid off. I still believe in building through the draft. I think the draft is an important part of building your team and having young assets to work through.
“We’ve shown that we will always be aggressive if it comes to acquiring a good player or at least attempting to, and we’ve done that. I would say that for us, the ability to get good players and where we were, for as young as we are on this roster right now, and knowing that we had the two first-round picks in 2023, enabled us to be aggressive and make a move like that. We had talked to a number of teams about a number of players. We were being very aggressive across the league trying to find players.”
▪ Grier was asked how the front office will spend the first day of the draft, with Miami not having a pick until 102:
“We were trying to figure out what we were going to do on draft day and one of the guys said we’ll just watch Tyreek highlights in the draft room to make us feel good.”
It’s a strong wide receiver draft class, but Grier said, “it’s unfair to compare any of those kids to Tyreek’s skill set coming out. He’s such a unique talent and even [Wednesday] on the field he made a play and went down and then popped up like no hands, flipped up right off the ground. And we were just like, ‘look at this guy.’ He’s just so explosive and springy and just the way he works out at practice – his work ethic is unbelievable.”
Grier said acquiring “Tyreek was not one that I ever thought would happen and a lot of credit to [Chiefs general manager] Brett Veach and coach [Andy] Reid – working with them was great and I’m sure they were frustrated with us at times and we were frustrated with them but it ended up working out well.”
