Tua Tagovailoa is fighting back against the tag on him that won’t go away.

As concerns about his injury history swirl leading up to the NFL Draft, the former Alabama quarterback wants people to know it’s only because of the game he’s playing.

“I’m not playing badminton. I’m not on the swim team,” Tagovailoa said Friday night on an Instagram Live show with Maryland coach Mike Locksley, his former offensive coordinator. “[Football] is a physical sport. You’re gonna get hurt. That just comes with it. And it was just very unfortunate that I got hurt every season.

“It’s a part of the game. It’s a contact sport. I can only control what I can control. I can’t control that.”

Once projected to be the top pick in April’s draft, Tagovailoa had his junior season end early when he dislocated his hip in November and underwent surgery. That came after he had undergone a pair of surgeries to get him back quickly from a pair of high-ankle sprains.

Tagovailoa was cleared by doctors after his hip surgery to run and begin football activities on March 9. He has spent much of the time since trying to prove to NFL teams that he is fully healthy, albeit in the unconventional atmosphere leading up to the draft because of the coronavirus pandemic.

That included holding a virtual pro day on Thursday in Nashville.

“I thought it went pretty good, given the circumstances,” Tagovailoa said. “We only had so much of the field to work with. … A lot of the guys came out. We had a guy whose name was Kalija [Lipscomb], who was from Vandy. Jerry [Jeudy] flew in to be able to catch. We had multiple other guys that came in to catch, as well. We did it all under the precaution of the 10-people limit.”

Last week, Tagovailoa underwent a medical exam from an independent doctor agreed upon by NFL team physicians and the results were “overwhelmingly positive,” NFL Network reported. Still, there have been concerns that Tagovailoa’s injury history — which also included a broken finger and a knee sprain while at Alabama — could drop him out of the top 10 picks.

“I’ll play for whoever takes me,” Tagovailoa told Locksley. “I just want to play, man. It doesn’t matter what organization I go to, man. I just want to play. I look forward to playing under any organization that is willing to take a chance on me.”