Tua Tagovailoa’s decision to complain to the media that his teammates were showing up late to players-only meetings didn’t seem to go over well inside his own locker room.
It went over even worse with former players on the outside.
The Miami Dolphins quarterback was roundly blasted by former NFL players for airing his team’s dirty laundry in public, including by at least one former teammate. Former Denver Broncos receiver DaeSean Hamilton, who was on the Dolphins practice squad in 2022, took to social media to call out Tagovailoa’s hypocrisy, claiming “the starting QB…was late to the first team meeting during my 3 seconds on the Dolphins.”
That was far from the worst of it, though. Two former NFL players, LeSean McCoy and Emmanuel Acho, tore into Tagovailoa on the YouTube talk show Speakeasy.
“I hated it. I truly did,” McCoy said. “I just feel like for Tua, it was soft. If you’ve got a problem with your players, address them. You tell it to the media now everybody in that locker room has to answer to who’s not coming to the player meeting. You’re the quarterback.
“I look at guys like a Baker Mayfield. People are going to show up to only player meetings because they respect him. They don’t respect Tua. They don’t respect him because you do stuff like this.”
Acho added that this controversy would mark the end for both Tagovailoa and head coach Mike McDaniel in Miami. He even tweeted the Dolphins “have to fire their coaches” now.
“It’s over because of Tua Tagovailoa,” Acho said. “Tua, you don’t realize, you just shot a bullet, but that joint came right back at you. If players don’t show up to a players-only meeting, it’s because they don’t respect the leader. And the leader of the team is the quarterback.
“They’re not showing up because they don’t respect you, Tua. They’re not showing up because they don’t believe in you Tua. The players not showing up to a players-only meeting is an indictment on you, Tua.”
Former NFL tackle Andrew Whitworth seemed to agree.
“Woof. That’s on you, bud,” Whitworth wrote in a social media post.
Ralph Vacchiano is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He spent six years covering the Giants and Jets for SNY TV in New York, and before that, 16 years covering the Giants and the NFL for the New York Daily News. Follow him on Twitter at @RalphVacchiano.
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