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Marcel Louis-JacquesESPN
MIAMI — Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill has only caught passes from Tua Tagovailoa for a month, but already has high praise for his new quarterback.
Hill told reporters during his introductory news conference in March that he knew Tua was “one of the most accurate quarterbacks in the NFL,” and expanded on that statement after Tuesday’s OTA practice.
“At first, I thought it was going to be something crazy — the ball going all over the place, but Tua actually has probably one of the prettiest balls I’ve ever caught in my life,” Hill said. “It’s very catchable. Tua is a very accurate quarterback. That’s all I’m going to say.”
Miami traded five draft picks, including first and second-round picks in the 2022 draft, to the Kansas City Chiefs in exchange for Hill back in March, before immediately signing him to the most lucrative contract in NFL history for a wide receiver — a four-year, $120 million extension with $72 million guaranteed.
Despite being teammates for barely more than two months, Hill has already had Tagovailoa’s back on multiple occasions, including earlier in May when a practice video depicted a seemingly underthrown ball by Tagovailoa went viral, amassing nearly 7 million views on Twitter.
Hill responded the next day by posting a video of several deep passes from Tagovailoa to Dolphins receivers.
“I just feel like football is all about confidence and I’m very confident in my quarterback,” Hill said. “So I just feel like if I’m able to help him get all the confidence in the world and push other guys to push that confidence into him, then the sky’s the limit for the guy because he’s a heck of a talent, has crazy arm strength, arm talent.
“We’re all excited just to watch him sling the ball each and every day.”
Tagovailoa has received praise from Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel for his play and work ethic throughout this offseason, and was named the team’s practice player of the day last week.
McDaniel told reporters Tuesday that he was impressed by Tagovailoa’s instincts at the position.
“I’ve seen a guy that’s attacking the moment, a guy that really likes to play football,” McDaniel said. “You hear people describe a quarterback’s instinctiveness. … I didn’t quite know what that meant. Now I have a better idea of what that meant, but I still don’t have a better way to describe it besides instinctiveness.
“But you can tell the player has played the position for a long time and that he thinks about the game of football through the lens of the quarterback position. I’ve been very excited about his development as far as the offensive plan and being the starting quarterback for the Miami Dolphins.”
Source: www.espn.com