Brian Flores responds after Tua Tagovailoa slammed his coaching style with the Dolphins

Ryan Young

Brian Flores heard what his former quarterback said about him this week, and it didn’t sit well with him.

Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa spoke out about his former head coach in an interview with “The Dan Le Batard Show” this week and ripped Flores’ coaching style with him compared to his current situation with new Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel.

Flores, who is now the defensive coordinator with the Minnesota Vikings, admitted that Tagovailoa’s comments stung.

“That hit me in a way that, I wouldn’t say it was positive for me,” Flores said on Tuesday, via Fox9’s Jeff Wald. “But at the same time, I’ve got to use that and say, ‘Hey, how can I grow from that? How can I be better?’ … Do I feel like that’s me? No. But how can I grow from that situation and create a world where that’s not the case where anybody says that about Brian Flores?”

Flores spent three seasons leading the Dolphins, including Tagovailoa’s first two in the league. McDaniel was hired to replace Flores after the 2021 campaign. Flores, who spent more than a decade in various assistant roles under Bill Belichick with the New England Patriots, spent the 2022 season with the Pittsburgh Steelers before joining the Vikings as their defensive coordinator. The Dolphins stint was his only one as a head coach during his time in the NFL.

The differences between the two coaches he’s played under in the league, Tagovailoa told Le Batard, is massive.

"To put it in simplest terms," Tagovailoa said, "if you woke up every morning and I told you, ‘You suck at what you did, that you don’t belong doing what you do, that you shouldn’t be here, that this guy should be here, that you haven’t earned this.'

"And then you have somebody else come in and tell you, ‘Dude, you are the best fit for this, like you are accurate, you are the best whatever. You are this, you are that.’ Like how would it make you feel listening to one or the other?"

Tagovailoa took it further, too.

"You hear it — regardless of what it is, the good or the bad — and you hear it more and more, you start to actually believe that,” he said. “I don't care who you are, you could be the President of the United States. [If] you have a terrible person that's telling you things that you don't want to hear, or that you probably shouldn't be hearing, you're gonna start to believe that about yourself.”

Tagovailoa threw for a career-high 4,624 yards and 29 touchdowns with 14 interceptions last season, his fourth with the Dolphins. He led them to an 11-6 finish, which was their best record in more than a decade, and to a second straight playoff appearance — though the franchise has not won a postseason game since the 2000 campaign.

Tagovailoa has since signed a new four-year, $212.4 million deal with the Dolphins.

And even though he may not have liked what he heard, Flores is trying to keep his attention on what’s ahead of him.

“I’m genuinely happy for the success that Tua’s had,” Flores said. “I really wish him nothing but the best. … Really, more than anything, I’m just focused on the Vikings.”

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