Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa took his share of hits during Monday night’s victory over the Rams. But one that may have been unnecessary came in the second quarter.
Tagovailoa had just thrown an interception to linebacker Christian Rozeboom, who was returning the ball up the sideline. Tagovailoa got in front of Rozeboom, lowered his shoulder to try and make a tackle, and Rozeboom’s leg ended up hitting Tagovailoa in the helmet.
Miami’s quarterback was fine, but given Tagovailoa’s history, things certainly appeared as if they could’ve been worse.
“No, I didn’t feel any of that,” Tagovailoa said postgame before joking, “That was pretty bad tackling form though. That was pretty terrible.”
In his third game back from injured reserve after suffering a concussion earlier this season, Tagovailoa finished 20-of-28 passing for 207 yards with a touchdown, interception, and lost fumble.
“I feel good. Everything’s good,” Tagovailoa said. “I went up to that dude that intercepted me. I asked him, ‘Bro, you couldn’t have just ran out of bounds or cut back?’ I was like, ‘You saw me and I saw you, you wanted to just run me over?’ He told me after the game, he’s like, ‘There was no room there. There was nowhere else to go.’ He has to do what he has to do to help his team win games. I wasn’t planning on using my head to go hit that.
“I think when you’re playing, when you’re out there, the game is too fast for you to think of anything else,” Tagovailoa later added. “If you start thinking of anything else, it’s hard for you to focus on your job. So, go out there and play football.”
While head coach Mike McDaniel likely didn’t love seeing his quarterback try to bring down a linebacker like that, he did offer one solution aside from Tagovailoa using a different tackling technique.
“No, I think the best way to do that is to not throw it to the opponent,” McDaniel said. “These are the moments that I can feel the growth from the three years the most. When something doesn’t go well, he gets so mad at himself and holds himself to a high standard but he is also recognizing that he’s the franchise quarterback of this team. So, you can’t go too deep into your own self-lashing. You have to lead, and you have to move on from things good or bad. I thought he did a very good job of taking those L’s, so to speak, and not having it affect his play as he progressed and moved forward through the game. I was very happy with that.
“I’d prefer not to have the adversity, but that’s not really the case in NFL football. You have to be ready to pick yourself back up and go at it with gusto.”
