Tua Tagovailoa — Alabama — Junior – 6’0 — 217 – No. 13
Tagovailoa has been as highly touted a QB as college football has seen in the last several years, starting with this five-star recruitment out of Hawaii and the Elite 11 debut as well as his big moments at Alabama which included, of course, the national title in 2017 and many high-leverage situations for the most visible program in the land over the last three seasons. He will bring the left-handed QB back to the NFL for the first time since Kellen Moore threw a touchdown in 2015, which is a rather staggering fun fact.
(Statistics courtesy of Sports-Reference.com)
(Information courtesy of MockDraftable.com)
Positives: There is a very long list of positives when it comes to this player, and it starts with his mastery of the passing game. He is elite at ball placement and accuracy, and the ball arrives with great rapidity but also right on the hands or numbers. He is fantastic at putting the ball where it needs to go and when it needs to get there under the structure of the offense. It is beautiful to behold, and it is consistent in short, intermediate and deep throws. In fact, his deep balls are a thing of real beauty and hit their mark repeatedly. Further, he makes great decisions and manipulates safeties in a textbook fashion that certainly doesn’t normally show up with young players. He moves in the pocket well but also stays in the pocket and doesn’t look to bail or run. He sees things and understands the offense very well. He can throw all sorts of different speeds and trajectories and also seems to have all the intangibles you want from your QB1. He has some incredibly special qualities.
Concerns: Quite simply, he has a catastrophic health concern with his dislocated hip that puts him on a very short list of players who are attempting to have success in the NFL after this massive injury. He has been cleared to already in that his injury is healed, but that seldom gives everyone full optimism, given the shortness of Bo Jackson’s career three decades ago. If we can set that aside and simply recognize how often he takes massive hits and gets banged up, it is worth discussing his style is that of Andrew Luck or Carson Wentz in that it seems to sometimes lead to those health woes, and perhaps that combined with his stature will be his Achilles heel throughout his career. Can he stay healthy and make decisions to preserve his availability? If so, he is arguably the best player in this entire draft. But that is the biggest of ifs. Beyond that, he is capable of some “rush of blood to the head” decisions with the ball on occasion, but he is a very tidy player, for the most part.
Overall: We certainly have to be realistic when we talk about a player with a very rare injury and what that would do to even the best prospect in the draft in a sport where the most important ability is availability. But we also have to be realistic about what price makes too much sense to pass on a talented passer, who has most every desirable component to his game, too. For me, he is downgraded from high first to a red-tagged FIRST-ROUND grade, and you bet if he falls to No. 17 that I would take him if I were Dallas. Of course, I don’t think for a second that he will fall that far, but I am also not a doctor and have not examined him, which is made even more complex in this current coronavirus environment we are in. Several teams will have an incredibly tricky and important decision on their hands.
