Many are lukewarm about the skill set of Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, but not Mike McDaniel. The first-year Miami coach seems infatuated with Tagovailoa.
It led to McDaniel making a ridiculous claim about the third-year signal caller while he was on the “Dan Le Batard Show With Stugotz.”
“When he throws the ball, every lefty I’ve ever been with, the ball kind of tails like this. Something with science I don’t try to digest,” McDaniel said. “His doesn’t. It’s the most accurate, catchable ball I’ve ever seen.”
Yup, read the second part of that quote from McDaniel again. That is very lofty praise for Tagovailoa, who the Dolphins selected fifth overall in the 2020 NFL Draft.
Le Batard even gave McDaniel a chance to couch or change his stance, and after a very long pause, the 39-year-old coach stood pat with what he had said.
McDaniel did seem to walk back his hot take a little bit later in the interview, but in a tongue-twisting manner that wasn’t exactly easy to comprehend.
“He has these skills that I’m not going to say — ever that he’s the most accurate,” McDaniel said. “I’m saying what I’ve witnessed, if I was going to catch that football, that would be the accurate and most catchable. So, how do we make that into good quarterback play?”
Tagovailoa, 24, was mediocre at best in his second year in the NFL last season. He threw for 2,653 yards and 16 touchdowns while throwing 10 interceptions. He also completed 67.8% of his passes.
The only time McDaniel seemed to make any sense was when he laid out how Miami’s offense can benefit from Tagovailoa’s accuracy.
“For me and the way that I’ve learned and some of the stuff that we got really good at in San Francisco was yards after the catch and all of those things, which is maximized by ball placement and all these things,” McDaniel said.
McDaniel’s statement about Tagovailoa will certainly be remembered, and if the quarterback struggles this season, what the coach said about him will be brought up over and over again.
