With Miami set to kick off its 2023 NFL campaign on Sunday, Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was asked this week if he’d like to play 17 games this season.

“I wouldn’t like to — I’d love to do that,” Tagovailoa said. “I would love to do that.”

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Since Tagovailoa became Miami’s starting quarterback in the sixth game of his NFL career, the Dolphins have played 45 games and the former Alabama All-American has missed 10 of them with injuries – one in 2020, four in 2021 and five in 2022.

In 2022, Tagovailoa missed five games and more than half of another because of concussions – one sustained on Sept. 29 in a 27-15 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals and another one on Dec. 25 in a 26-20 loss to the Green Bay Packers.

“I think I’m far ahead,” Tagovailoa said of his mental and physical preparedness since his previous regular-season appearance more than eight months ago. “It hasn’t been a thought ever since it happened. Ever since I’ve been cleared, it’s never been a thought to look back at that.”

Tagovailoa said he was grateful to be able to resume his NFL career.

“I think being appreciative of being able to continue to play is one thing,” Tagovailoa said. “The thing with that is you can never take it for granted regardless of the position you’re in. I don’t know how to explain it. Some guys have the luxury of finishing whole seasons, and other guys, as myself, I’ve never had that luxury. I’m definitely cherishing the opportunity to still go out there and lead these guys.”

To prepare to play 17 games, Tagovailoa worked on getting stronger and improving his agility during the offseason, including jiu-jitsu lessons to learn to fall better.

“He’s a dog, man,” said Dolphins wide receiver Jaylen Waddle, another former Alabama standout. “Anybody that’s transformed his body into what y’all see now, learned different skills to help his play, that just shows how much he really wants it and wants to be out there.”

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Miami will kick off its 2023 campaign at 3:25 p.m. CDT Sunday against the Los Angeles Chargers at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.

Last season, Tagovailoa led the NFL in passing-efficiency rating. But in the Dolphins’ 23-17 loss to the Chargers on Dec. 11, he completed 10-of-28 passes for 145 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions. It was the only game in 2022 in which Tagovailoa didn’t complete at least half his passes.

“They had a great game plan for us last year,” Tagovailoa said. “It was tough to get things started in, basically, the first half and then trying to move on from that into the game, trying to get a rhythm going offensively. But you’ve got to tip your hat to their coaches. Their coaching staff — they’re well-coached. They took a lot of things away that we would normally run and things that we felt comfortable doing, so hats off to them.

“But like I said, I’m really excited. This is going to be a good team.”

Tagovailoa thinks Miami is good enough to reach the Super Bowl.

“I mean, why not talk about it?” Tagovailoa said. “Every other team is talking about it, regardless of their record. You have to believe it. If you don’t believe it, that’s where you go wrong. First off, regardless of opinions of people outside, it has to start from within. When it starts from within, you start believing in each other, you start believing in play calls that normally you wouldn’t want called. But when you’re able to believe in them, you trust that guys are going to be in the right spot at the right time, and anything can happen.”

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.