Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is back from the concussion that has sidelined him since Week Two and will start on Sunday against the Cardinals. And he’s being urged to take extra precautions to keep himself available.
Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel says it’s been made clear to Tagovailoa that the franchise needs him to slide, get out of bounds, throw the ball away and otherwise avoid the kind of contact that could lead to another concussion.
“I think he has a better understanding of his responsibility to the entire organization at this point,” McDaniel said, via the Palm Beach Post. “My answer would be, ‘You don’t need that one’ this time around.”
Dolphins running back Raheem Mostert said teammates are urging Tagovailoa to take care of himself.
“We’ve been talking to him ever since his injury. I’ve been telling him, ‘Hey, you need to work on sliding,’” Mostert said. “And we all joke around and laugh, but on a serious note, he knows that he has to protect himself a little bit better and moving forward, only he can control those things. . . . We can say those things to him until we’re blue in the face, but one thing that I would say that’s always my saying is, ‘Hey, you can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink, right?’ We’re going to bring Tua to that water, but we can’t make him drink. He has an understanding of that, and moving forward, he’s going to do his best.”
Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill wants fans to get involved.
“When we were playing against the Colts, you see the fans start clapping for Anthony Richardson when he slid,” Hill said this week. “I said our fans need to clap for Tua, make him slide.”
No NFL player can completely avoid contact, but there may be no player in the entire league who has coaches, teammates and fans as invested in seeing him stay healthy as Tagovailoa.
