Tua Has New Look, But Same Old Goals
Tua Tagovailoa showed off his new look when he conducted his weekly press conference, causing quite a stir with cornrows that social media buzzing about how he now looks like singer Drake.
"My hair was outrageous, so I thought if I didn’t braid it or if it wasn’t long enough, I would just cut it," Tua said. "So I just thought I’d get it braided.”
But who Tua is clearly hasn't changed, which became very evident when he asked what winning the NFL MVP award would mean to him.
TUA'S NEW LOOK
Tua had thick hair when he was spotted in the locker room last week when the Dolphins practiced twice, but looked completely different Wednesday.
The new look wasn't about being inspired by Drake, though. Or former basketball star Allen Iverson, either. The reason for the change was much more simple.
"No AI, No AI inspiration," Tua said. "But dude's a baller. Got a lot of respect for him. It was just one of those things where my hair was just wild. And I wanted to see what I could do with it. If I couldn't do anything, I was gonna chop it off. But Drake, I don't know if I look like Drake. Drake?"
With that, a reporter asked Tua whether he could rap and then ever-so-briefly mimicked Drake by singing, "Kiki." And then, most importantly, Tua was asked whether "wifey" (his wife Hannah) approved of the new look.
"The wifey likes it," Tua said. "She loves it. Gotta get her redone before the game."
Early in the preseason, Tua also got some attention when he had unveiled a tattoo covering the full length of his right arm.
"Just trying (things) out," Tua said. "Obviously not my tattoo because that's permanent. But let's try and see what this what this is with my hair."
TUA STILL ALL ABOUT THE TEAM
As he prepares for the second half of the 2023 season, Tua very much remains in the hunt for the NFL MVP award as the leader in many passing categories, starting with touchdowns.
Tua currently has the fourth-best odds, according to BetOnline, at 7/1 behind only new favorite Jalen Hurts at 3/1, Patrick Mahomes at 13/4, and Lamar Jackson at 13/2.
But Tua always has been a team-first kind of guy, and that's why his answer when he was asked what winning the MVP award would mean to him should not have come as a surprise.
"Brother, I just want to help our team win the Super Bowl," Tua said. "I think that would be the greatest deal. When everything's said and done, no one can take that away from you."
Tua's position there is consistent with what he's always been, a guy who's always going to be quick to spread credit among his teammates when the team succeeds and taking blame when things go wrong, such as the shotgun snap that got away from him at the end of the Kansas City game in Germany.
The same way he spreads the ball in the passing game, he spread the credit when he was asked about the success of the Dolphins offense in a season when scoring overall is down across the league.
“I would credit that to everyone on the offense," Tua said. "Our offensive staff, starting with the head man (Mike McDaniel), to (Offensive Coordinator) Frank (Smith), to our coaches position-wise, and then everyone buying in on the offense. None of that could be possible if we’re all not bought in. It’s an effort of everyone – all 11 guys – making this offense come to life, because if you look on film, a lot of what we do with our (play) actions and whatnot, we can’t go and find that film from another team because nobody is necessarily running the top actions that we run as much.
"It’s really all based off of the training, the fundamentals, the techniques that we’ve been going over every week in practice, and going out and trusting what you see and executing that.”
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