Miami Dolphins starting quarterback Tua Tagovailoa launched a stunning attack on former head coach Brian Flores, calling him “a horrible person.”
Tagovailoa’s reason for targeting the current Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator was his consistent treatment, reportedly telling his starter how bad he was at football.
Flores served as head coach of the Dolphins from 2019 to 2021, during which time Tagovailoa was selected fifth overall in the 2020 NFL Draft.
After Flores was fired, he filed a discrimination lawsuit against the NFL, alleging that minority coaches in the league were not being treated fairly.
Still, Tagovailoa’s offense 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 viewed their relationship differently
“To put it simply, if you woke up every morning and I told you that you sucked at what you do, that you don’t belong at what you do, that you don’t belong here, that this guy doesn’t belong here, that you didn’t earn this right, and then someone else comes in and tells you, ‘Man, you’re the best candidate for this,’” Tagovailoa began in an interview with Then Le Batard.
“How would you feel if you listened to one or the other?” Tagovailoa said. “You hear it more and more, you start to believe it.”
“When you have a horrible person telling you things that you don’t want to hear or that you probably shouldn’t hear, you’re going to believe that about yourself,” Tagovailoa continued about Flores.
“It’s actually been two years of training, not only for me but for some of the guys that have been here since my freshman year until now,” Tagovailoa concluded.
Last season, under new head coach Mike McDaniel, Tagovailoa threw for a personal-best 4,624 passing yards, more than the former Alabama national champion did in his two seasons under Flores.
Flores did not directly respond to Tagovailoa’s comments, but described the dynamic between him and Tagovailoa as a good “player-coach relationship.”
Tagovailoa clearly thinks otherwise. The Vikings and Dolphins are not playing this season.
