Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa believes his team’s disappointing season is a direct reflection on his failure to protect himself from a concussion that caused him to miss four games.
Tagovailoa told reporters he is “very surprised” by the Dolphins’ 5-7 record and said it doesn’t reflect the entire team but does reflect how important it is that he do a better job of avoiding big hits that could cause him to miss time.
“I don’t think that shows the character of who we are as a team, doesn’t show the work that we’ve put in this offseason together,” Tagovailoa said. “But nobody else will say it but me, and I feel like this has a lot to do with myself, obviously putting myself in harm’s way in the second game, going down, basically leaving my guys out to dry. That’s what I would say. Anyone can have an opinion about it’s football, it’s this, it’s that, but I do take that to heart as well, so I don’t want to do that to my guys again.”
Without Tagovailoa, the Dolphins’ offense was awful, and they went 1-3. There’s no guarantee that they would have won all those games with Tagovailoa, but if they had gone 3-1 instead of 1-3 in that four-game stretch, they’d be 7-5 and right in the thick of the AFC playoff race.
There may be nothing more important to the Dolphins than Tagovailoa avoiding concussions. And he knows he needs to do everything in his power to protect himself.
