Tua Tagovailoa will forgo his senior season at Alabama and enter the NFL Draft. Once considered the top quarterback in college football, Tagovailoa carries considerable risk given his injury history.
So much risk, in fact, that Damon Amendolara does not believe a team can roll the dice on him with a top-10 pick.
“Tua is a wonderful talent and a wonderful guy,” Amendolara said on The DA Show. “He’s been all class, he’s been a great teammate, he’s been a great leader, he’s been a great player – but how can the injury history not worry somebody?”
The Miami Dolphins, however, are reportedly interested in drafting Tagovailoa.
This could be, in a word, disastrous.
“You have been in a 25-year downward spiral of finding Dan Marino’s replacement,” Amendolara said. “This is the guy, with that injury, that you’re like, ‘That’s it, we’re good, we’re all in’? You have tried every which way to solve the quarterback situation since the ’90s, and you haven’t been able to do it with much success.”
Since Marino retired, the Dolphins have started Jay Fiedler, A.J. Feeley, Gus Frerotte, Chad Pennington, Chad Henne, Cleo Lemon, Matt Moore, Ryan Tannehill, Jay Cutler and Ryan Fitzpatrick, among others, at quarterback.
The Dolphins need to hit each of their first-round picks. They cannot take Tagovailoa fifth or trade up to go all-in on him.
“If you’re the Dolphins and you still have all of this draft collateral, you’re puling the trigger on trading a No. 1 or two 2s or whatever it takes to get into No. 3 overall, to draft a guy that you won’t be able to see throw at 100 percent before you draft him?” Amendolara asked. “It’s not crazy to think that the hip ends up kind of always being a thing and he can’t quite ever be 100 percent in terms of torque and stability and leg work and footwork, etc. That’s not a crazy idea. It’s certainly on the table. And is there a Carson Wentz thing here where, yeah, he’s good when he’s healthy, but he’s never healthy?”
That’s certainly possible.
“If it’s not an ankle, it’s the other ankle,” Amendolara said hypothetically about Tagovailoa. “If it’s not the two ankles, it’s a hip. If it’s not the hip, is it going to be an elbow? A shoulder? A clavicle? A concussion? Carson Wentz is great. Carson Wentz is never healthy.”