Tua Tagovailoa Dropping In 2020 NFL Draft?
Is Tua Tagovailoa dropping in the 2020 NFL Draft?
Coming into the most recent college football season, Tagovailoa was widely regarded as one of the two or so best quarterbacks in the nation.
Even with the surprising emergence of eventual Heisman winner and LSU star Joe Burrow, Tagovailoa was still regarded by most as a top-five pick.
Unfortunately, midway through the year, Tagovailoa suffered a season-ending hip injury.
Because he has not played a single down of football since that point, it is a bit unclear as to what his status is right now.
He certainly is releasing all the right information regarding his recovery process, but at the end of the day, that is still not the same thing as seeing a guy actually playing football in front of you on Saturdays.
This week, ESPN NFL Draft insider Mel Kiper Jr. suggested that due to Oregon quarterback Justin Herbert’s impressive Senior Bowl showing, Tagovailoa’s place as the “second quarterback off the board” was suddenly in jeopardy.
“That’s the one that’s tricky, and I’ll tell you what. Tua and that medical report coming out on Tua is going to be important,” Kiper said.
“There’s some concern about, ‘hey if you’re not durable in college, can you expect to be durable once you’re in the NFL?’
“There’s going to be a chance for Justin Herbert to jump over Tua. It could very easily fall where Herbert is the second quarterback taken and Tua is the third,” he continued.
“That’s not etched in stone right now that it’s going to be Tua then Herbert. Herbert is putting a lot of pressure to be (ahead of Tagovailoa).”
The other ESPN NFL Draft insider, Todd McShay, agreed with Kiper’s general sentiment.
“Tua just comes down to medical,” McShay said.
“If your medical staff thinks that he’s going to get that twitch back and the hip is not going to be an issue moving forward – I’ve heard all sorts of different things.
“At the end of the day, if you just sum up all of the information I got out of Mobile, some people are a little bit more scared than others. But it really is a wait-and-see game,” he continued.
“Everyone wishes that they had six months instead of three months to figure out what they want to do. If he was healthy and he didn’t have the hip injury, we would be discussing Tua versus Burrow.”
The Miami Dolphins are the team most often linked to Tagovailoa. They are picking at No. 5. Will they let Tagovailoa pass them by? We’ll find out once and for all come this April.
Related: Tom Brady Bringing Patriots Teammate With Him In 2020
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
