Tua Ready to Face his (Former) Favorite Team

As if Tua Tagovailoa didn't already have enough motivation for the Miami Dolphins matchup against the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, there's another factor that maybe isn't so obvious.

Beyond the possibility of clinching a playoff berth and moving closer to the No. 1 seed in the AFC playoffs, beyond Tua forging ahead and moving up in the NFL MVP race, beyond the idea of silencing his critics and/or skeptics, is the simple face that Dallas was Tua's favorite when he was growing up in Hawaii.

“It’s going to be cool," Tua said Wednesday. "It’s going to be cool for the moment, just being able to see the star. Being able to see those guys in their jerseys and whatever and whatnot. Some of the guys that are playing, I used to watch them while I was in high school playing high school football. And now I get to play against some of the guys on their team. That’ll be cool, but at the end of the day, I have a job and we want to go out there and beat them.

"Cowboys were my favorite team growing up. They played in prime time a lot and in Hawaii, prime time is like 3 p.m. We were like, dang it’s night over there, the sun is still up over here. (laughter) I come from a family that are big Cowboys fans. But not anymore. Everyone is Dolphins fans. And then the one who still support the Cowboys are probably not my family anyways. (laughter)”

Dallas is coming off a bad outing in every aspect in a 31-10 loss against the Buffalo Bills, but there are plenty of stars on the defense — and not just on the helmets.

Along with the headliner Micah Parsons, there's also cornerback DaRon Bland, who's already set an NFL single-season record in 2023 with five interception returns for touchdowns.

“You just don’t show up on Sundays and poop that out, if you will," Tua said. "Having the NFL record in pick-sixes and whatnot, you don’t just show up on Sundays and do that. He’s done a great job. I think (Cowboys Defensive Coordinator) Dan Quinn has a done a great job for their defense as well. They’ve got really talented players up front, really talented players on the back end. We know what we’re going to have to do. We know what kind of game this is going to be. It’s going to be a hard-fought, physical 60-minute game and we’ll be ready come time Sunday.”

LAST DALLAS MATCHUP

This, of course, will be Tua's first game against the Cowboys before he got to the NFL in 2020, and the last Miami-Dallas meeting took place in 2019.

It came in Week 3 that season and marked Josh Rosen's first game as starting quarterback for the Dolphins in his very brief stint.

The Dolphins lost 31-6 at AT&T Stadium that day as part of their 0-7 start to the season.

Rosen would start two more games before being permanently replaced by Ryan Fitzpatrick, who was the starter at the beginning of the 2020 season before Tua took over after six games that year.

LAST DALLAS MATCHUP

Tua "keeping receipts" as he continues to put up MVP-worthy numbers