Miami Dolphins' Tua Tagovailoa wants every little thing more than just all right | Habib

MIAMI GARDENS — We weren’t right, but we were warm. While trying to figure out what to expect from Tua Tagovailoa, version 5.0, there was a tendency to focus on his mouth. Tagovailoa appeared to be slimmed down, a narrative the Miami Dolphins were more than happy to keep feeding, even though the quarterback himself dodged questions about just how much weight he shed in the offseason in an effort to keep pass rushers at bay.

And while it’s entirely possible that the Tua Tagovailoa the Dolphins unleash on the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday is a more nimble player than we’re used to, it’s not what was going in Tagovailoa’s mouth that has teammates impressed.

It’s what’s coming out of it.

“More vocal.”

“Really leading us.”

“Self-grace, self-conviction.”

Those are some of the words players in the offensive huddle with Tagovailoa say about the franchise player, so anointed by the organization by virtue of the life-changing, record $212.4 million contract that owner Stephen Ross agreed to mere weeks ago.

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Forget that 22-year-old introvert the Dolphins drafted fifth overall back in 2020. Tagovailoa is 26 now. He’s a husband. A father of two young children. A leader of 52 men. Where once was a firestorm surrounding Tagovailoa — how could a franchise quarterback not be voted a team captain for 2021? — it’s now a foregone conclusion he’d be wearing the "C."

Is that Tua Tagovailoa singing Bob Marley tunes?

And it’s more than that. At his annual spring luau for his foundation dedicated to children, Tagovailoa spoke about how South Florida, with its parallels to Hawaii, “feels like home” now. That he welcomes it, just as it does him. If anyone failed to catch on this was a player who’d emerged from his shell, the evidence was unmistakable later that evening when he picked up his guitar and sang — yes, sang — the Bob Marley staple, “Three Little Birds.”

Receivers Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle and coach Mike McDaniel are three little birds who will tell you they won’t worry about a thing regarding their Pro Bowl quarterback. That he’s the one to lead them past the one-and-done malaise the Dolphins have endured the past two postseasons. Not just by raising his play, but insisting everyone raise theirs.

“I’m going to keep pounding the table and keep saying that he’s more vocal,” Hill said. “He’s more vocal in the huddle. He’s more vocal in the locker room. He’s vocal everywhere. Like everywhere I walk inside of this building you’re going to hear Tua’s mouth like to the point where I’m like, ‘I wish you’d shut up now.’

“He’s been great, though. Tua is a great teammate and he does a great job of just over-communicating to all the wideouts even if it is a good rep. Good rep or bad rep, he’s always coming up to us, making sure we see that route or that play the same as him … versus when I first came in here, we’d run a play when then it’d be like ‘Where’s Tua at? I need to talk to him about this play.’ Versus now, he’s going to find you. It’s a beautiful thing to see. The same thing that Pat (Mahomes) used to do back in K.C.”

Tagovailoa: ’Guys know who I am'

You know how sometimes you don’t see yourself the way others see you? That’s apparently at work here. Tagovailoa hasn’t quite come around to the idea he’s more assertive.

“I would say yes and I would say no,” he said. “A lot of the guys know who I am off the field. Just on the field, you know, it's just, I guess, coming out now. Yeah, that's just what it is. I guess feeling more comfortable bringing my own personality onto the playing field.”

The Dolphins know their offense the first half of last season wasn’t their offense in the second half. That in 2024, they have to continue to score with home-run balls to Hill, but they’ll also have to do it via small ball — 10-play drives that eat up clock and give their defense time to breathe.

McDaniel cooked up the league’s No. 1 offense in 2023 but knows the Dolphins can’t repeat unless he stays a step ahead of defensive coordinators who began closing the gap last winter. The No. 1 ranking justified McDaniel’s claim from Day 1 that the quarterback he needed in Miami was the one who already was in Miami.

Bombs to Hill and Waddle quieted critics who questioned Tagovailoa’s arm. A 2023 season in which he played every game silenced those who said he was brittle. Now, following an NFL-leading 4,624-yard season, comes fine-tuning mode, a must if the Dolphins are going to get even more exotic with pre-snap motions. Timing is everything.

Then, there’s the matter of getting the ball off. Tagovailoa often unloaded in about 2.2 seconds last year. Asked last week about his offensive line, Tagovailoa said, “Well, brother, I get the ball out fast, so I am confident with anybody we’ve got up there.”

It’s possible his emphasis on mobility could be less about self-preservation and more about expanding his creativity and ability to extend plays.

“I’m not gonna lie,” Hill joked in June. “When I saw Tua at the Pro Bowl, I was kind of scared. He was fat. But seeing him now and where he’s come from and how skinny he has gotten — what’s that stuff everybody is taking? Ozempic? He had to be taking that.”

What does the scale say about 'new' Tagovailoa?

Outside of saying he’d cut out sugars and was relying on “diet and exercise,” Tagovailoa never shed light on how many pounds he shed.

Now, we know.

Tagovailoa was listed last season at 6-feet-1 and 227 pounds.

Tagovailoa is listed this season at 6-1 and 225 pounds.

All that attention for 2 pounds. Thirty-two ounces. For metric geeks: 0.907 kilograms.

How it’s distributed, of course, makes all the difference.

“I would say it's not anywhere near where I was in Alabama,” Tagovailoa said of his mobility. “And I say that with humbleness. … I was able to move a lot quicker when I was there. But I think after the hip injury it kind of did take a toll still on my mobility, but I think I'm a lot better than I was last year and the year prior. So I feel a lot better.”

Fullback Alec Ingold says if you’re looking for reasons that Tagovailoa can surpass his career-best 2023, look elsewhere.

“It’s that self-confidence,” Ingold said. “It’s self-grace. It’s self-conviction. And I think it bleeds off into the locker room of being able to lead exactly how he needs to lead.”

One need to look no further than Tagovailoa’s blunt criticism of former coach Brian Flores for proof he’s now speaking his mind.

“I don’t know the measurements,” McDaniel said. “But there’s ways to measure energy waves. And the strongest energy wave you can give off is authenticity. Write that down. So I think that’s what people feel and that’s why people follow, is not only do they like him, believe in him, believe in his skills and ability to lead them to places they haven’t been, but they also trust it (Tagovailoa’s word) and regard it for what it is, which is true.”

Tagovailoa clearly is comfortable in his own skin. When did he start to sense teammates were listening the way they are now? When did he sense he had the "it" factor necessary to lead an NFL team?

“The ‘it’ factor?” he said. “I've had the ‘it’ factor. No, I've had the ‘it’ factor since I was in high school, then going into college and then coming here. That's how I've always viewed myself as going out and competing.

“Yeah, very, very nice, very cool, calm, collective, but inside just very competitive.”

Dolphins reporter Hal Habib can be reached at hhabib@pbpost.com. Follow him on social media @gunnerhal. Click here to subscribe.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Tua Tagovailoa leading Miami Dolphins with 'self-grace, self-conviction'