Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa recently had some harsh words for Brian Flores — the current defensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings — and on Tuesday, the latter talked to the media about the quarterback’s comments.
Flores served as the head coach of the Dolphins organization for the first two seasons of Tagovailoa’s career (and three seasons in total) before the team decided to replace him with Mike McDaniel.
#Vikings DC Brian Flores understandably takes the high road in responding to comments made by Tua Tagovailoa yesterday:
“I’m genuinely happy for his success. I wish Tua nothing but the best. Right now I’m focused on the 2024 Vikings.” @FOX9 pic.twitter.com/Al1yDeROz7
— Jeff Wald (@JeffWaldFox9) August 20, 2024
Brian Flores on Tua calling him a “terrible person”:
“Look I’m human. That hit me in a way that I wouldn’t say was positive. I’ve got to use that and say how can I grow from that? How can I be better?” #Vikings @FOX9 https://t.co/RCmZS77Fgy pic.twitter.com/hTSRvuOoFw
— Jeff Wald (@JeffWaldFox9) August 20, 2024
Tagovailoa’s recent comments made headlines, with the passer explaining how different it is playing for McDaniel after starting his career with Flores.
“To put it in simplest terms, 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,” Tagovailoa said of his experience with Flores. “That you haven’t earned this right.
“And then you have somebody else come in and tell you, ‘Dude, you are the best fit for this. You are accurate. You are the best whatever. You are this. You are that.’ How would it make you feel listening to one or the other? You see what I’m saying? And then you hear it — regardless of what it is — the good or the bad. And you hear it more and more and you start to actually believe that. I don’t care who you are. You could be the president of the United States. 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 going to start to believe that about yourself.
“And so, that’s sort of what ended up happening.”
Flores’ stint as the head coach of the Dolphins lasted from the 2019 season through the 2021 campaign. During that span, Miami had mixed results. The Dolphins had two winning seasons under Flores but ultimately lost more games than they won during his tenure, finishing 24-25.
Moreover, even in the two seasons under Flores where Miami finished above .500, the Dolphins didn’t have a chance to carry over their success into the playoffs, as the team never earned a postseason bid during his stint.
Based on Tagovailoa’s comments, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he wasn’t exactly starring for the Dolphins when Flores served as the team’s head coach. In fact, there’s an argument to be made that Tagovailoa was more productive in the 2023 regular season alone than he was during the 2020 and 2021 regular seasons combined.
After all, Tagovailoa is fresh off a season where he threw for a league-high 4,624 passing yards while suiting up in all 17 of Miami’s contests.
For comparison, he threw for 4,467 yards in his first two seasons in the NFL combined (23 games played). Tagovailoa also threw 27 touchdowns compared to 15 interceptions during that span.
Now that he has seemingly found his footing in the NFL and is playing for a head coach that he has a good relationship with, he will look to help the Dolphins to some major success in the years ahead.
