Brian Flores: Relationship with Tua Tagovailoa…

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Former Dolphins coach Brian Flores hasn’t shied away from speaking publicly about his current fight with the NFL, even though the league surely will study every word he says in search of anything that could be used as ammunition to create the impression of inconsistency in anything he may say while testifying later, in his landmark lawsuit against the league and multiple teams.

Flores appears as a guest on the next I Am Athlete podcast. The episode arrives Monday, February 21. For now, a trailer has been released, during which Flores discusses reports that he had a strained relationship with quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.

“This is an interesting topic, because it wasn’t strained. We had a good relationship. It was a player-coach relationship. And I think in a relationship like that, you know, the coach challenges the player. And oftentimes the player challenges the coach. And I think there was a great deal of respect between the two of us. So you hear these crazy kind of — this narrative that’s out there. But this is a young man who works, who developed and got better over two years and, you know, I think he’s got, you know, a bright future. I wish him all the best . . . .

“So the world can think what it wants to think. I think — ask Tua, you know? I’m here to say what I gotta say, and you can ask him. So, I think he’d say the same thing.”

After the Dolphins fired Flores, the team apparently began peddling the narrative that Flores didn’t want Tua, that Flores wanted Deshaun Watson instead, and that the rest of the organization preferred the status quo. That was a phony narrative, aimed at pinning all perceptions of dysfunction on Flores.