Miami Dolphins starting quarterback Tua Tagovailoa has launched a surprising attack on former head coach Brian Flores, calling him “a terrible person.”
Tagovailoa’s reasoning for going after the current Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator was his constant treatment, allegedly telling his starter how bad he was at football.
Flores was the Dolphins’ head coach from 2019 to 2021, which included selecting Tagovailoa with the No. 5 pick in the 2020 NFL Draft.
After Flores was fired, he filed a discrimination lawsuit against the NFL, alleging improper treatment of the league’s minority coaches.
Tagovailoa’s offense, however, sheds a different light on his time as an NFL coach.
Tagovailoa described former head coach Brian Flores as a “terrible person” in an interview
Flores has not responded to Tagovailoa’s comments but has seen their relationship differently.
‘To put it in simpler terms, if you woke up every morning and I told you that you’re useless at what you do, that you shouldn’t be doing what you do, that you shouldn’t be here, that this guy should be here, that you haven’t earned this right, and then somebody else comes along and says, “Dude, you’re the best fit for this,” Tagovailoa began, in an interview with And Le Batard.
“How would you feel when you heard one song or another?” Tagovailoa said. “You hear it more and more and you start to believe it.”
“If you have a terrible person telling you things that you don’t want to hear or probably shouldn’t hear, you’re going to start believing that about yourself,” Tagovailoa continued of Flores.
“It’s basically been two years of training, not just from me, but from a couple of guys that have been here since my rookie year, all the way up to now,” Tagovailoa concluded.
Last season, under new head coach Mike McDaniel, Tagovailoa passed for a career-best 4,624 yards, more than the former national champion from Alabama managed in his two seasons under Flores.
Flores has not directly responded to Tagovailoa’s comments, but described his dynamic with Tagovailoa as a good “player-coach relationship.”
Tagovailoa has a very different opinion. The Vikings and Dolphins are not playing this season.