Is Brian Flores concerned about Tua Tagovailoa and his hip injury?

The Miami Dolphins believe that Tua Tagovailoa is healthy and ready to go but Brian Flores isn’t ready just yet.

Tua Tagovailoa may or may not play soon or this year at all but Brian Flores has some thoughts on his young QB and maybe there is a concern.

Speaking with the media today, his normal post-game Monday presser, Brian Flores answered questions about Tua Tagovailo and when he might be ready to play. Flores’ comments are interesting to say the least and makes you wonder if there is some small concern over whether or not he could get injured again.

Yes, I know, I could be reading too much into this but these are the words from Brian Flores.

"“If it was my kid and he had a serious injury like that, I wouldn’t want his coach to be in a rush to put him in there because of media pressure… No one is going to pressure me into doing anything.” – Brian Flores"

Flores said that Tua has “checked all the boxes”, according to Cameron Wolfe via Twitter. That makes me wonder if there is some type of internal concern that is sitting in the back of Flores’ brain that is telling him to wait.

It’s probably smart to keep Tua off the field and fans don’t have a big issue with it. We looked at that earlier today when we broke down the camps that want him to stay off the field and those that want him on but there is something about this statement that is sitting in the back of my head. If you are that concerned to the point that the injury is obviously on your mind, why did you just toss Josh Rosen to the curb?

I don’t think there would be any hesitation in Flores putting Tagovailoa on the field if something happend to Ryan Fitzpatrick but it does concern me that there would be hesitation should Fitzpatrick have a horrible day again and the Dolphins are still in position to win the game. Would Flores pull Fitzpatrick and put in Tagovailoa? Doesn’t sound too confident that he would.

It is hard to understand what Brian Flores is actually thinking and reading too much into his statement could be the wrong thing to do but let us also remember that there was some concern last month in the fact that Tua had yet to take any hits since last year.

At the time, we wondered if that was simply speculative but now, you do have to wonder if there is more to the story of Tagovailoa taking the field. The Dolphins could have played him late against the Jaguars in clean-up but opted not to. That isn’t a big deal in and of itself but coupled with Flores’ comment, “if it was my kid and he had a serious injury like that…” maybe there is something more to all of this.

Knowing how the Miami Dolphins fanbase can be, this is not to say that the Dolphins are 100% concerned but it is clear they have it in their heads. This is also not to say in the very least that Tagovailoa was the wrong pick to make at five last April. I am only pointing out that the hip injury he suffered last year may be healed and he may be “checking” off the boxes but I don’t think Flores is 100% ready to take a chance putting his young gun on the field, not yet, and by the sounds of it, the injury may be a part of that reason why.