MIAMI GARDENS — The Miami Dolphins’ 2024 season went awry in large part due to quarterback Tua Tagovailoa missing six games.

There’s no way around it.

A team that finished 8-9 and had a shot at a playoff berth in Week 18 could’ve easily won at least half the games Tagovailoa missed to make the postseason as a wild-card team, matching what it had done the previous two seasons under coach Mike McDaniel.

So it’s well known, in McDaniel and Tagovailoa’s fourth offseason together, this team must keep its quarterback healthy and available in order to find success in 2025.

“You have a franchise quarterback, you want him to play, not hang out with me on the sidelines,” McDaniel said Tuesday ahead of the Dolphins’ first practice of a three-day mandatory minicamp. “So, the experience last year — I think if you think of 2024 for Tua, realizing in the most egregiously, slow, painful way of just the effects of not having him on the field, the residuals — I think he started the offseason as it being the primary importance. … Every effing rep this dude has, that is an opportunity to reinforce something paramount. I’m probably going to over-reinforce paramount.”

It was the greatest offseason emphasis for Tagovailoa from the moment that offseason started.

“Doing everything I can to stay available for the guys,” Tagovailoa said Tuesday, his first interview session with local reporters since Jan. 3 toward the end of the past season. “It’s knowing when is the time to give up on a play, and I would say the longevity for me to be on the field with my guys is more important than whatever that one play is.”

It was only a minicamp practice session on Tuesday, but maybe the most important rep Tagovailoa had was one where he rolled left, saw his eligible receivers were all covered and threw the football at a target’s feet for a good throwaway. That moment may lend more to Tagovailoa’s long-term success than his highlight of the minicamp session, ending the day’s work with a long touchdown down the sideline to second-year wide receiver Malik Washington.

“I’m competitive and whatnot,” Tagovailoa said. “It just comes natural to me to compete in that sense, and that’s just the thing I fight with every time.”

So in practice, three months out from the Dolphins’ first meaningful game of the coming season, is where Tagovailoa can find that balance in determining when it’s time to make a play versus when to live to fight another down.

Tagovailoa finished last season on the sideline because of a hip injury that cost him the last two games. He said before the finale against the New York Jets that he would play in the playoffs had the team qualified for the postseason.

On Tuesday, Tagovailoa said he felt like himself again with the hip in February. The first four games he was out for were because of his placement on injured reserve for a concussion.

The Dolphins ranked toward the bottom of the league in explosive plays in 2024 after it was such a key component of the offense the previous two seasons under McDaniel.

“I think the key to that is continuing to stay within the play of this offense,” Tagovailoa said, “but really honing in on, when we get opportunities, not falling asleep on (them).”

While star wide receiver Tyreek Hill continues to recover from offseason wrist surgery and tight end Jonnu Smith is missing minicamp as he seeks a new contract and has become the subject of trade talks, the Dolphins quarterback has rekindled his connection with Jaylen Waddle this offseason.

“We’re continuing to grow our chemistry with one another,” Tagovailoa said. “For the past year, for the past two years, it’s really been me and (Hill) kind of getting on that same page, but if we can get Waddle, me and Waddle can get together and continue to make strides throughout these last few days of minicamp, I think it’s going to lead into some pretty good things preparing us for training camp.”

Miami’s signal-caller noted the importance this offseason of having reps with Hill running routes while not catching passes while his wrist recovers.

And while Smith has been absent, Tagovailoa says he is “100 percent” Team Pay Jonnu.

“That’s my guy. That’s my dog,” he said. “Jonnu’s done really good for us. So, have nothing bad to say about him, and I love him as a person, too, outside of football. I think all our guys that do what they need to do should get paid.”

Connecting deep with Washington was something Tagovailoa appreciated about Tuesday because he hasn’t found him much downfield to this point, while mostly hitting him on underneath routes.

Originally Published: June 10, 2025 at 3:55 PM EDT