Tua Tagovailoa demands more from “vulnerable” Tyreek Hill

The Miami Dolphins returned for the first training camp practice on Wednesday but the fall-out from a disappointing 2024 season is still front of mind.

Wide receiver Tyreek Hill broke ranks at the end of last season, refusing to play in the regular-season finale against the New York Jets and telling reporters that he was planning to leave the team. Six months on, however, Hill is still in Miami and he has since apologized for his comments.

Nevertheless, he still has work to do to get his teammates back on side. Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa made that clear when speaking to the press on Wednesday, saying that it will not be easy for Hill to regain a relationship with the rest of the team.

“It’s not just with me, it’s with a lot of the guys. I’m not the only one that heard that. You guys aren’t the only people that heard that,” Tagovailoa said.

“A lot of people that follow football, that follow the Miami Dolphins, that follow Tyreek that are fans of his -- everyone has seen that. So, when you say something like that, you don’t just come back from that with, ‘Hey, my bad.’ You got to work that relationship up. You’ve got to build everything back up again."

“I think there’s a lot more vulnerability with Tyreek. He’s conversating a lot more with the guys, not just about football but about things off the field,” Tagovailoa continued. “Being vulnerable with some of the things that people know about his personal life and things of that nature. And I think that’s the first step to him. Building true relationships and a real connection with a lot of the guys in there."

For his part, Hill has insisted that he is now fully focused on the Dolphins. The five-time Pro Bowler was the NFL’s receiving yards leader and receiving touchdowns co-leader in 2023, before his form dropped off dramatically last year.

Now, he’s trying to concentrate on the game again: “I want to see what it looks like whenever I focus just on football, and I just focus on myself and family. Because I feel like I really haven’t been giving the best version of me, of Tyreek, my whole entire career. I’ve always been trying to be here, be there.”

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