Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa said Wednesday he wants to “publicly apologize” and “move forward” after calling out his team’s leaders following last Sunday’s Week 6 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers.
Tagovailoa told reporters after Sunday’s 29-27 loss that he felt improving “starts with the leadership” before adding that some team members had been late to players’ meetings.
“I made a mistake, and I’m owning up to that right now,” Tagovailoa said Wednesday (h/t ESPN’s Marcel Louis-Jacques). “I’ve talked to guys on the team about it, talked to the leaders about it. They know my heart. They know that the intent was right.
“But no matter the intent— the intent can be right, but when things get misconstrued, or however the media wants to portray it, that leaves a void of silence and a lot of questions for the guys on our team.”
Tagovailoa continued: “Now, being 1-5, we talk a lot about, ‘Alright, we’ve got to get this going… forget about the noise.’ And I feel like I just added onto that for our guys.
“For myself, I’ve got to look at myself as a leader protecting the team. I don’t feel like I did that to the best of my abilities. I felt like I let the emotions of the game get to me after the game, and that’s something that I can learn from… What happens in-house should be protected, and none of that should have gotten out.”
Tagovailoa concluded, “I want to move forward, and now I want to focus on the Cleveland Browns.”
With just 46 seconds left in Sunday’s game, Tagovailoa connected with Darren Waller for a go-ahead touchdown against the Chargers.
But a 40-yard kickoff return and a long run from Ladd McConkey allowed the Chargers to get close enough to kick a game-winning field goal with just five seconds remaining on the clock.
Tagovailoa then threw a pick on the final play of the game.
When asked about the Dolphins’ path forward after the game, Tagovailoa answered, “Well, I think it starts with the leadership, in helping articulate that for the guys and then what we’re expecting out of the guys, right? We’re expecting this. Are we getting that, are we not getting that? We have guys showing up to player-only meetings late, guys not showing up to player-only meetings. There’s a lot that goes into that. Do we have to make this mandatory? Do we not have to make this mandatory?
“So it’s a lot of things of that nature that we’ve got to get cleaned up, and it starts with the little things like that.”
Tagovailoa was then asked if he was talking about players missing or arriving late to meetings, to which the quarterback answered, “Late, yeah.”
When asked about those comments on Monday, head coach Mike McDaniel said Tagovailoa had provided “a misguided representation of player-orchestrated film sessions.”
“It sounds like there was something on his mind with regard to the specific meetings with a couple individuals that he was trying to get corrected with direct communication,” McDaniel said. “I think that’s the only way to lead… I’m sure whomever he’s talking to, they’ll deliver.”
The Dolphins haven’t seemed in step either on or off the field during a 1-5 start to the 2025 season. Miami heads into Week 7 having averaged 281.5 average yards of offense (27th in the NFL) while allowing opponents to average 389.3 yards against (30th in the NFL).
McDaniel will hope to lead his team to put together a more cohesive effort when the Dolphins kick off against a fellow 1-5 team in Cleveland this Sunday at 1 p.m. ET.
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