Keep 'my name out your mouth': Tua Tagovailoa responds to Ryan Clark's stripper comment

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. ― Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa had some choice words Wednesday in response to questionable comments ESPN analyst Ryan Clark made about Tagovailoa's weight this week.

Clark said Tagovailoa looked like he skipped the gym and "not at the dinner table eating what the nutritionist had advised" during an episode of NFL Live this week.

Clark added Tagovailoa – who has worked to improve his body for 2023 after sustaining two documented concussions and missing five games last season – appeared happy, thick and compared him to a dancer at a strip club.

"My background, I come from a Samoan family. Respect is everything. But it does get to a point where, hey, a little easy on that buddy. I think we’re pretty tough-minded people. And if we need to get scrappy, we can get scrappy, too," Tagovailoa said.

"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? To some extent, I wanted to be a little lighter. There’s a mixture of things that people don’t understand that people don’t know about that are talked about behind the scenes.

"I’d appreciate if you kept my name out your mouth, that’s what I’d say," Tagovailoa said.

What did Ryan Clark say about Tua Tagovailoa?

Clark, who was added to ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown coverage this week, insisted in several posts on social media that his comments were made in a joking manner.

Here are Clark’s initial comments:

"Let me tell you what he wasn’t doing: He wasn’t in the gym, I’ll bet you that," Clark 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."

What has Ryan Clark said in response to initial Tua comments?

Clark referred to them as "locker room jokes" in a response to Tagovailoa’s trainer.

"As a person that has heard that joke about himself based on his glutes a ton of times, I was having some fun," Clark told South Florida-based trainer Nick Hicks.

"Tua is certainly thick in his glutes and lower extremities. Also, like a ton of quarterbacks, not particularly lean. I was having some fun because, hell, it’s TV."

Clark issued a full apology on social media on Thursday.

Tua with a parting shot for Ryan Clark

Tagovailoa found Clark’s comments to be "weird" when asked by a reporter for a response.

"He probably knows more about me than I know about myself. I don’t know," Tagovailoa said of Clark.

"Ryan has been out the league for some time. … It’s a little weird when other people are talking about other people when they’re not that person. So, it’s just a little weird."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dolphins' Tua Tagovailoa responses to ESPN's Ryan Clark's criticism