The one aspect I don’t like about Tua’s interview is NOT that he didn’t have a firm grasp of the playbook

Yeah, I know. It’s another blog talking about the absolutely scathing interview(not really) Tua Tagovailoa gave during OTAs yesterday. I know you’ve seen loads of blogs/articles/pieces, whatever you like to call them, dissecting every word, facial expression, shoulder shrug, and body shift Tua did in that interview in an effort to find a hidden clue in there as if they’re searching the Good Book for bible codes. I apologize, sort of, for putting out yet another Tua interview blog, but I just had to get this thought about out there before I succumb to the long Memorial Day weekend.

I couldn’t care less that Tua didn’t know the playbook up and down and inside and out. He was a rookie under unprecedented circumstances, and plenty of the greats have admitted that their rookie year or first year with a new team was a whirlwind and that they didn’t have a firm handle on the playbook. If you want to bring up that Burrow and Herbert didn’t seem to struggle, go for it and have fun. I guess there have never been drafts where three quarterbacks were all very good.

What I can’t wrap my brain around is the fact that Tua, who knew all these questions were coming his way, meaning he had ample time to prepare, wasn’t even directly asked, “hey Tua did you know the playbook? backward and front?” Did Tua even prep himself for the interview? You’d think the smart plan would be to have a bunch of canned answers in his mental Rolodex ready to go for all types of beat-writer questions. But to me, it seems that Tua was not prepared not to give that type of answer, and that’s what I can’t fathom. Yes, that sentence was written correctly.

I feel that with anyone, not just NFL quarterbacks for my favorite team, that it’s important to know what to say but also what not to say. That’s a life lesson for anyone who needs to hear that. It’s important, in life, to know when to keep your trap shut. It’s like Lincoln said; better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt. Honest Abe would have advised Tua to say something like, “I’m looking to improve on all aspects of my game from last year, and in year two, I’m going to prove that I’m worthy of the #5 pick.” Anything like that, and I’m not writing this blog(it’s a blog, by the way), and the talking heads aren’t sifting through the interview finding what they want.

You might be saying that Tua’s answers are fine because they’re genuine, and they show the locker room that he is taking ownership for how he performed last year. I’m saying that although I enjoy athletes being genuine and candid, I’d much rather they be measured, especially in circumstances when they aren’t full of emotions that are harder to control, such as immediately after games. After games, I’m all for athletes saying whatever they want because that’s real, and I’m not going to really fault an athlete for how they react after giving their all in a game.

This wasn’t that. Tua had all the time in the world to spit out any answer he wanted, and somehow he still managed to say one of the only things that rub people the wrong way.

Is Tua just naive? Like, does he not know what his words are going to create? Does he think his words will get the guys in the locker room to think he’s, even more, the man than they already do? I have a hard time believing that anyone in the locker room heard this and was like,” man, I love how Tua is so honest with everyone. It makes me want to play harder.” Call me nuts, but I think he can lie to the media and the world and not tell everyone he didn’t know the playbook that well while also, behind closed doors, tell the team that he needs and will be more prepared in 2021.

You can’t avoid everything that happens in life. But you do have control over everything you say, and Tua should embrace the freedom he has to not say everything he’s thinking. That’ll be better for him, and it would be better for everyone. At the very least, it would be less annoying if Tua thought about what he said before he said it.

What you should do is enter the Memorial Day Weekend, regardless of the garbage weather, knowing that Tua has been getting to work for weeks.

By the Way- This blog is brought to this song that I listened to a few times while writing it. I haven’t heard this in a while, and I needed to listen to it three times.

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