Despite seeking a new contract, Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is in attendance for the team’s mandatory minicamp.
Tagoailoa told reporters on Tuesday that he’s not concerned about receiving a new deal and is confident he’ll get one. But he didn’t say whether he thinks that will happen by the time training camp begins.
“Well, I think there’s been a lot of progress at this point,” Tagovailoa said, via Omar Kelly of the Miami Herald. “From where we started, there’s been a lot of progress. Now, you can ask the other question — then why aren’t we seeing an agreement? Well, that’s the tough part about it. That’s why it’s business. That’s why you’ve got one side and the other trying to work to meet in the middle.”
Tagovailoa claimed he’s not frustrated or pissed off and that he’s not concerned about not having a second contract yet, conceding “antsy” may be one of the things he’s feeling. But he sounded at least a little frustrated when asked if he views other QB contracts from around the league as benchmarks — like the one Detroit’s Jared Goff recently signed.
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing, the market is the market,” Tagovailoa said. “If we didn’t have a market, then none of that would matter, it would just be an organizational thing. It didn’t matter if that guy got paid that because it’s an organizational thing. So that’s what I would say — the market is the market. That’s it.”
Tagovailoa also said it’s “100 percent” difficult to separate the business aspect from what he’s doing as a player on the field.
“For people that talk about business is different than personal, sure, I can agree to some extent,” Tagovailoa said. “But who you are as a person for what you do business and personal, is who you are for how you do everything. And if not, if you can be two different people at once, then by all means, you can do that. But to me, that’s just not how I am.”
So as the Dolphins get ready to wrap up their offseason program, Tagovailoa clearly wants a new contract and is ready for his agent to tell him it’s ready to be signed.
“I’m confident that a deal will get done. But, again, it’s not in my control,” Tagovailoa said. “It’s really up to both sides meeting in the middle with this.”
