Dolphins' Tua Tagovailoa to Ryan Clark: Keep my name out of your mouth | Habib
MIAMI GARDENS — Of all the things Tua Tagovailoa said about Ryan Clark on Wednesday — and he said plenty — one word sticks out. It does for Tagovailoa. It should for you. And it certainly should for Ryan Clark.
The word? Respect.
What happened to any sense of respect for Tagovailoa when Clark went on ESPN on Monday and accused the Dolphins’ quarterback of blowing off training for the season? It’s bad enough when one man disrespects another this way, but when one of those men spent 13 years in the NFL (Clark), you’d think his respect for peers would trump the cheap laughs on TV.
Tagovailoa would hope so.
“I come from a Samoan family,” Tagovailoa said. “Like, respect is everything.”
That might be asking too much of Clark, so Tagovailoa settled on a simple request: “I’d appreciate if you kept my name out of your mouth.”
If you missed it, here’s what Clark said about Tagovailoa:
“Let me tell you what he wasn’t doing: He wasn’t in the gym, I’ll bet you that,” he said. “He might spend a lot of time in the tattoo parlor. He was not at the dinner table eating what the nutritionist had advised. He looks ‘happy.’ He is thick. He’s built like the girls working at Onyx right now.”
Onyx is a strip club in Atlanta. Good luck deciphering what that has to do with anything. Tagovailoa had trouble making sense out of the entire rant.
“I mean, he probably knows more about me than I know about myself,” Tagovailoa said sarcastically. “I don’t know, Ryan’s been out of the league for some time. So I don’t know. It’s a little weird when other people are talking about other people.”
Clark was talking to hear himself talk, which is the way of our sports world. It’s better to have a bad take, an uninformed take, than no take. Was Clark conducting roll call at Tagovailoa’s gym? Peering through the dining room window at his house?
“There’s a mixture of things that people don't understand, that people don't know about, that are talked about that go behind the scenes,” Tagovailoa said.
A double dose of irony at ESPN
Clark went on social media Tuesday afternoon, writing, "I 100% take accountability for it!! I said it!! I meant it!! It was a joke!! If asked why I said it by Tua I would tell him. I have 0 issues looking a man in the eye and telling my truth. I accept any consequence."
Wait — there are consequences at ESPN for a take that brings attention to ESPN?
I can't get inside Clark's head and say it wasn't meant as a joke. I can look inside his words and confidently conclude that saying an NFL player didn't work out and had poor eating habits would not be received as humor. What made Clark target Tagovailoa's work ethic as a humorous topic to begin with?
As if this hasn’t gone off the rails enough, Clark’s comments came as ESPN’s website was posting a piece — a researched piece, it must be said — detailing Tagovailoa’s offseason program. The training was designed to enhance his chances of staying healthy this season.
That’s not all.
“I think it’s stupid that players and coaches have to answer questions about what an analyst says on TV,” Clark wrote on social media in October. When the irony was pointed out Wednesday on social media by “Freezing Cold Takes,” Clark replied, “Still feel the exact same!!”
So it’s OK for analysts to spout off, not so great when players have the opportunity to defend themselves. As Tagovailoa said, it’s against his culture to go looking for a fight, but not to respond when a fight comes looking for you.
“You know, it does get to a point where, a little easy on that, buddy,” Tagovailoa said. “Because I think we’re pretty tough-minded people and if we need to get scrappy, we can get scrappy, too. Just sayin’.”
Tua Tagovailoa: ’We all worked hard' to prepare for season
For the record, Tagovailoa is now listed at 6-feet-1, 227 pounds, 10 pounds heavier than last season. His offseason training included taking jiu-jitsu lessons to better brace himself when he falls.
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“I think we all worked hard throughout the offseason,” Tagovailoa said. “And I'm not someone to talk about myself the entire time, but it takes a lot. You think I wanted to build all this muscle? Nah. To some extent I wanted to be a little lighter.”
By now, we know there are two sides to Tagovailoa. There’s Tagovailoa the quarterback, there’s Tagovailoa the family man. He makes no apologies for trying to separate the two.
“I don’t look at myself as someone who chases clout,” Tagovailoa said. “I stay out of the media as much as I can. I try to live my life as private as I can. … There’s nothing about me that tells you that I’m chasing clout. I mean, go find Jake Paul or go find Logan. Go find those guys. If you want to chase clout, those are the guys you want to chase.”
Dolphins reporter Hal Habib can be reached at hhabib@pbpost.com. Follow him on social media @gunnerhal.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Miami Dolphins' Tua Tagovailoa to ESPN's Ryan Clark: Don't talk about me
