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Not much is sold on Tua Tagovailoa as a franchise fullback. At least not yet. But the only people who matter believe in Tagovailoa and place their future in his hands.
Tagovailoa will get the chance to prove the Dolphins right.
‘A lot of attention is paid to Tua, but I thought he improved a lot over the course of the season. “I’m excited about the future with him,” Dolphins coach Brian Flores told ESPN Cameron Wolfe on Thursday. ‘He’s a young player, a talented player, who has jumped back from the hip. I think it’s a great off-season for him. That jump from year 1 to year 2 will be as important as for all rookies. ”
The Dolphins have the third overall pick, a pick they got from the Texans, who speculated whether they would set up a quarterback for a second consecutive year. The Cardinals did just that by putting Josh Rosen in 10th place overall in 2018 and Kyler Murray first overall in 2019.
Chris Grier, general manager of Dolphins, tried to suppress any possible controversy with the quarterback and said: ‘Tua, we are very pleased with that. He is our starting quarter. ”
Flores downplayed a story earlier this week that some of Tagovailoa’s team-mates doubted the newcomer full-back.
“Criticism comes with the area in the NFL across the board,” Flores told Wolfe. “Our team did a good job of ignoring things. Anyone who has seen the Dolphins this year has seen that we were a close group and I think that is still the case. The idea that there is any break is transcended. I thought there was a lot of support in the locker room.
‘My message to the team was to ignore the noise and the people in the building are going to tell you the truth. Without all the information, how can you determine what’s going on? ”
Tagovailoa scored 6-3 as the team’s starter, completing 64.1 percent of his passes for 1,814 yards with 11 touchdowns and five interceptions.
“We learned he was healthy. He still has a lot of his mobility. He is accurate, “said Flores. ‘In the Arizona game, he brings us back to the fourth quarter. He brought us back in the Kansas City game. He also did not play as well in other games. He had some light spots and not so bright spots. This is the life of a rookie. If he continues to learn, study, stay healthy, get stronger, work on his footwork and his eye progression and continue where he left off, I think we will be happy with his improvement. ”