Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is the latest professional athlete that wants media and fans to know he’s keeping receipts stowed away in his locker room.
The NFL MVP candidate was asked Wednesday about the narrative that he’s somehow a product of wide receiver Tyreek Hill in Miami’s elite offense.
Usually soft-spoken, Tua’s response is not what we expected.
“I understand that my platform and who I am in this league as a quarterback makes me, if you want, polarizing. Whether I’m the best, whether I’m the worst, I could care less.” Tagovailoa told reporters. “I keep receipts. We all have a way of how we do things.”
This whole thing about a quarterback being the product of a system or a certain player is absolutely absurd. It’s come up with MVP favorite Brock Purdy of the San Francisco 49ers. Some believe that Purdy’s sensational sophomore season has to do with Kyle Shanahan’s system and their elite-level skill-position talent.
But as we’re seeing with Tua in South Beach, it’s all about a combination of these factors. Would he be successful under center for a team like the New England Patriots or Carolina Panthers? No, it takes talent across the board for a quarterback to have success. It takes a play-caller such as Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel.
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Tua has his Fins at 10-4 on the season and ranked No. 1 in the NFL in scoring. Through 14 games, he’s completing 71% of his passes for 3,921 yards with 25 touchdowns compared to 10 interceptions.
Sure, Tyreek Hill has proven himself to be among the most-dynamic wide receivers in modern NFL history. Prior to missing this past week’s game against the New York Jets to injury, Hill was actually on pace to break Calvin Johnson’s single-season mark for receiving yards.
Despite this, Hill has gone on record saying that Tua should be the MVP if one is picked from his AFC-best Dolphins.
Either way, it does appear that Tua Tagovailoa is fed up with the narrative that continues to be spewed. That’s true even if he’s going about it in a wholesome and diplomatic way.