Tua Tagovailoa doubles down after calling out Tyreek Hill

Earlier this week, Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa suggested that wide receiver Tyreek Hill still has repair work to do after he went viral in Week 18 of last season for saying, “I’m out,” in reference to his Dolphins tenure.

Now, Tagovailoa has elaborated on his comments from earlier this week, explaining that he’s looking to hold his teammate accountable.

“It’s not like only one person was gonna hear that,” Tagovailoa said of Hill’s comments in Week 18. “Cheetah had to have known that, ‘Okay, if I’m saying this, I’m gonna make sure the team knows. I’m gonna make sure the quarterback knows. I’ma make sure the fans know. I’ma make sure everybody knows, the league knows. I’ma keep everybody on notice when I make this comment.’

“And could it have been in the heat of the moment? Sure, you could say that, but at the end of the day, it came out, and whether you portrayed it to be something different because you’re a competitor or not, that’s not up for you to decide. That’s up for people in their own minds to create whatever they thought that meant for them.

“And so, just like anybody else, yeah, of course, Cheetah’s a great player, phenomenal player, but in a locker room, that’s where everything, the nitty gritty, the relationships, the hard conversations, that’s where you build each other up. You kinda work on each other as well. You have those conversations there.

“And so, Reek is going through his own phase of who he wants to become as a man in this league, who he wants to become as a father for his kids, and I said this in the previous interview: It’s never too late for anybody to wanna change, man. Regardless of what that looks like for them, that’s their stepping stone. That’s their journey. And that’s what it is.”

Tagovailoa added that he and Hill are “still continuing to build that relationship” and said he doesn’t feel he’s talking badly about Hill but is simply trying to hold him accountable.

Tagovailoa and Hill are likely going to have to be a dynamic duo for the Dolphins this coming season if the team wants to wash away the taste of last season. When both players have been healthy, Tagovailoa and Hill have been nearly unstoppable, but that wasn’t the last in the 2024 campaign.

With the quarterback limited to just 11 games and the wide receiver playing through injury, Hill had a forgettable season from a production standpoint, and the Dolphins finished with a losing record.

Hill gaining some maturity would seemingly be a step in the right direction for the team as it tries to improve its culture. Since he’s such a vital part of the Dolphins’ offensive attack, it would be encouraging for him to also make progress off the field and in the locker room.

The 31-year-old has a little bit to prove this year on the field as well. Last season might’ve been an outlier for him (especially given his injury situation) as he finished with under 1,000 receiving yards, or it might’ve been an indication that his prime is coming to an end. He may be motivated to prove that isn’t the case.

Miami made the playoffs in Hill’s first two seasons with the team before missing out last season. Earlier in his career, he won a Super Bowl with the Kansas City Chiefs and was frequently involved in deep playoff runs with them. There’s no doubt that he’d like to get to that level with Miami moving forward.