Dolphins’ Tua bulked-up and experimenting with new helmet, camera technology in offseason

MIAMI GARDENS — Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is used to change every offseason.

But it’s different changes he’s experiencing and experimenting with in 2023, ahead of his fourth NFL season.

Instead of dealing with a new offensive coordinator — something he’s had his first three years as a professional and his three college seasons at Alabama, but now has the same coordinator, Frank Smith, two years running in Miami — it’s playing with added weight from offseason strength training, trying out a new helmet that could provide a safety upgrade and practicing with a helmet camera that allows coaches to see what he’s seeing and hear his calls.

“Well, I’m trying to work on everything,” Tagovailoa said Wednesday after completing the second session of a three-day minicamp. “As much as I’m trying to work on throwing the ball, getting the ball to the guys, being able to push the ball a lot more downfield, getting in the playbook, I’m doing the same with my body.”

Listed by the Dolphins at 6 foot 1, 217 pounds, Tagovailoa’s noticeable commitment to strengthening his body transcends the obvious physical benefits. According to coach Mike McDaniel, it’s a testament to the way his quarterback goes about his craft that allows him to be a better leader.

“As we stand right now, this dude is everything you’d look for in a starting quarterback in terms of professionalism, how he attends to his job, how seriously he takes it,” McDaniel said. “He takes pride in making sure he does his job, but more importantly, how he makes others better at their jobs. And all of that can fall on deaf ears if you’re not living it yourself.”

Tagovailoa had a third NFL season where he proved he can play with playmakers around him in McDaniel’s offense, throwing for a league-leading 8.9 yards per pass attempt and 105.5 passer rating, plus 25 touchdowns to eight interceptions. What he has to do now, while maintaining and even surpassing that level of play, is stay healthy after missing 5 1/2 games last season.

Between bulking up and taking jiu-jitsu lessons that can better prepare him to avoid blows to the head that caused multiple concussions getting tackled to the ground in 2022, Tagovailoa has also been testing the NFL’s new quarterback-specific helmet, the VICIS Zero2 Matrix. But he’s not yet committed to wearing it when the season rolls around.

“I’m still trying to feel it out,” he said. “What better time to fill it out than OTAs? I heard it’s supposedly better than the helmet that I had (been) wearing last year. If it could be that much more safe, then you know, why not give it a shot?”

On that helmet, the team has employed a camera that gives Dolphins coaches a chance to see Tagovailoa’s perspective on pass progressions and also listen to audio of his calls in and out of the huddle.

“I’m never in the huddle. Now, I am,” said McDaniel, who can supervise Tagovailoa’s communication with teammates. “I think that added resource — he’s seen it live and he has a very strong recall in what he sees and is able to communicate it to coaches. So it’s more for, you know, coaches to see exactly what he’s seeing. That’s proved beneficial.”

But Tagovailoa, while seeing the benefits, hasn’t been the biggest fan of giving McDaniel, Smith and quarterbacks coach Darrell Bevell so much access.

“You think of the integrity of the huddle, like, ‘Man, do I really want the coaches to hear what I’m saying to the guys?’ ” Tagovailoa said. “Because sometimes you might not like a play, and you go into it and it’s like you tell the guys how you feel but you basically tell the guys, ‘Hey, I’m skipping this progression to come to you, so you better be there.’

“It has its good and it has its bad. That was like one of the things that we felt wasn’t as good, but a lot of the cool things that you can do with that is it gives audio for a lot of the new guys so that they can listen to the play over and over and over from the guy giving the play and then they can listen to the cadence.”

Off the field, Tagovailoa made a generous donation Tuesday night to the family of Eric Carmona, a Dolphins fan who died last week. Carmona was behind the popular Twitter account @TheGaluminati, which operates as a dolphin-masked, voice-altered character that leads TuAnon, a portion of Miami’s fan base reserved for Tagovailoa’s most-staunch supporters.

“He’s a diehard fan about me, but out of my respect to him, he basically — not just covered me — but the entire Dolphins,” said Tagovailoa of his $10,000 donation to the GoFundMe created to benefit Carmona’s family. “I just want his wife and his kids to know that we’re praying for them and that we’re thinking of them.”

The GoFundMe for Carmona has raised more than $63,000 toward a $75,000 goal as of Wednesday afternoon.