Tua Tagovailoa’s first meeting with the Miami Dolphins at the NFL Combine apparently did not go particularly well in his eyes.
According to Safid Deen of the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Taogvailoa felt he received something of a “cold shoulder” from the Dolphins in their initial meeting. The quarterback hopeful was expecting an enthusiastic response given the various rumors about Miami potentially trading up for him, but left feeling unsure if the Dolphins really wanted him to be their franchise quarterback.
“No one was excited,” the source said. “They didn’t give any indication of ‘he’s their guy.’ He felt weird, like is this a joke?
“He’s not turned off, but it was just weird.”
It should be noted that this could be entirely intentional from Miami’s point of view. The Dolphins want to keep things close to the vest and not give players too much reason to think they’re atop the Miami draft board. If they express too much interest in someone like Tagovailoa, or if he makes Miami’s interest in him known, another team that likes him might be motivated to trade ahead of the Dolphins.
That said, there have been some reports that Tagovailoa isn’t even Miami’s preferred quarterback option, so maybe Tua’s read on the situation isn’t entirely off. The question is: is this just a smokescreen coming from Miami?
