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The Miami Dolphins chose to bite the financial bullet this offseason, cutting ties with Tua Tagovailoa. After the new Dolphins front office opted to end the Tagovailoa era in South Florida, he ended up signing with the Atlanta Falcons.
On March 9, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that Tagovailoa and the Falcons agreed on a one-year deal, as the former Dolphins starting QB will now battle Michael Penix Jr. to be QB1 in Atlanta.
Moreover, heading into the 2026 NFL season, Falcons head coach Kevin Stefanski is urging Tagovailoa to use the Dolphins’ decision to cut ties with him as motivation, as Miami chose to take an NFL-record $99.2 million in dead money against the salary cap, per ESPN, to move on from their former QB.
“There’s something to be said when you’re fired,” Stefanski said (h/t NFL.com). “I can attest to that. You want to prove people wrong. You have a chip on your shoulder.
“I think where I’m coming into this, where Tua’s coming into this is, listen, this is not exactly how you thought it would go, but guess what, that’s the reality, and how are we gonna respond? I think that’s what he’s made of. You look back his career, you look back at his college career, he’s responded.”
Falcons Feel Tua Tagovailoa Will Fit in Atlanta
Moreover, Stefanski believes that despite the narrative on Tagovailoa, the former Dolphins signal-caller is an ideal fit for the Falcons.
“Tua was a good fit for us,” Stefanski added. “I think the football fit, the personal fit, I think he’s looking for a place where he can go and compete for a starting job, and that’s what we are offering to him.
“I think he’s somebody that has always competed in career, look back at his time at Alabama, so him coming in, and he wants to do what’s best for this football team, we’re excited to have him.”
Former Dolphins Standout Calls Out Tua Tagovailoa
Despite both parties moving on, Tagovailoa did throw a subtle dig at the Dolphins while speaking with the media in Atlanta.
“I don’t want to get too much in depth with things that were going on,” Tagovailoa said. “[This issue was] more so in terms of players-to-coaches than it was players-to-players. It was unique in a sense… in a lot of ways.”
The former Dolphins QB teasing his shade but not going into full detail about what went wrong led Channing Crowder to call out Tagovailoa.
“He didn’t like it here,” Crowder said in a March 26 video from 104.3 WQAM. “Obviously, they benched him. He and [Mike] McDaniel fell out. Then say, ‘Me and McDaniel, we, we didn’t see on the same page late in the season. We weren’t having success on offense.’ Get into details or just say, ‘I’m happy to be a Falcon.’
“Why is he throwing these little birds, these little breadcrumbs out and then running away from it laughing? Like, it’s just goofy. It’s goofy on both sides. Don’t squirrel. Either go, ‘I’m mad, I’m going to tell you why I’m mad,’ or say, ‘That’s in the past.’ That’s what I don’t like about Tua. Here you go, here goes a little something, but I’m not going to get into it.”
Eduardo Razo Eduardo Razo is a sports writer for Heavy.com, covering the NFL, MLB, and college football. He has previously covered the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB for NBC Sports Washington and NBC Sports Bay Area & California, and has freelanced for PSG Talk, covering Paris Saint-Germain. He also worked as an editor at Athlon Sports, focusing on MLB and the NFL. More about Eduardo Razo
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