Tua Tagovailoa raised a lot of eyebrows some comments he made about his teammates amid the Dolphins' uninspiring 1–5 start to the season. The quarterback informed the media that some Dolphins were less than punctual to players-only meetings and some were not showing up at all. His critiques did not sit well with a lot of former players—and perhaps in the locker room—prompting Tagovailoa to apologize for throwing some unnamed players under the bus.

"I made a mistake and I'm owning up to that right now," a contrite Tagovailoa told reporters. "I've talked to guys on the team about it, talked to the leaders about it, and they know my heart. They know that the intent was right, but no matter the intent—the intent can be right, but when things get misconstrued or however the media wants to portray it, that leaves a void of silence and a lot of questions for the guys on our team."

Nick Saban, who famously inserted a young Tagovailoa into a national championship game when he was coaching Alabama to capture his sixth of seven national titles, was asked about the situation on Friday's Pat McAfee Show and offered some praise for his former signal-caller.

"I'm proud of the way he handled it but one of the things that I always try to tell our players is you never criticize another player," Saban said. "In my entire coaching career you never, ever saw me criticizing one of our players."

"I was really shocked that Tua did what he did when he threw some guys under the bus. Maybe they're not playing they way they should play, I'm not taking up for the guys, but you don't say that about your teammate. But I really was proud of the way he came back and sort of took accountability for making a mistake."

That's fair commentary. Tagovailoa did not help himself or his team by pouring gas on an already burning fire. He does deserve credit for audibling and quickly performing some damage control.

Ultimately, that's a secondary story line for Miami. At 1–5 they are already dealing with a very narrow path to make the playoffs. Mike McDaniel feels as though he's coaching for his job every week and Tagovailoa may play a sixth season with precious little postseason success to show for it.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Why Nick Saban Is 'Proud' of Tua Tagovailoa for Apology Over Critical Teammate Comment.