Tua Tagovailoa Clapped Back at ‘Twitter Warriors’ Thursday

Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa has received his fair share of online criticism ever since joining the NFL—specifically because of his arm strength. And the 24-year-old decided to take a shot at those who he called “keyboard warriors.”

“For me, it’s just zone that out,” he said Thursday. “I mean, we come out to practice, everyone else … Twitter warriors, you know, keyboard warriors, whatever you want to call them—they’re not out here practicing with us working hard.”

Tagovailoa is entering his third season with Miami since being selected with the No. 5 pick in the 2020 NFL draft out of Alabama. And since entering the NFL, he’s ranked near the bottom of NFL signal-callers in terms of yards per attempt. Last season, he completed 263 passes for just 2,653 passing yards. He averaged 5.5 air yards per completion. 

His 67.8% completion percentage was good enough to rank seventh in 2021 but his lack of deep passes has been a constant storyline. During practice Thursday, he completed a deep pass to Tyreek Hill and had some fun when talking to the media about it as well. Earlier in the offseason, the team posted a video of him completing a deep ball to Hill but it went viral because online users pointed out Hill had to slow down to make the grab. 

“I don’t know if you guys recorded that last one to Tyreek, but … I don’t know about you but that looked like money,” Tagovailoa said. 

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