Tua Tagovailoa #13 of the Alabama Crimson Tide (Photo by Todd Kirkland/Getty Images)
Injury concerns aside, the Miami Dolphins can’t afford to pass on Tua Tagovailoa if the former Alabama quarterback falls to them at No. 5 in the draft
Tua Tagovailoa is a divisive NFL Draft prospect.
On one hand, he’s a supremely talented quarterback ready to lead a franchise right away. On the other, he’s an injury-prone player unable to handle the rigors of an NFL season.
The dilemma facing the Miami Dolphins is figuring out where exactly Tagovailoa lies on that spectrum. With the fifth-overall pick in the draft, the Dolphins are in a prime position to pick up their quarterback of the future.
Tagovailoa can be that player. In 2018, he led Alabama to a National Championship game appearance and was runner-up in Heisman Trophy balloting. He was well on his way to matching that performance in 2019 before Nov. 16, when his career came to a premature end due to a hip injury.
Whether Tagovailoa is fully healed from that injury is something the Dolphins are going to have to figure out before the draft begins on April 23. Tagovailoa has all the attributes to make him enticing to a rebuilding franchise like the Dolphins, and that may override any concerns they have over his injury status.
Here is why Tagovailoa would be a perfect fit in South Florida.
1) Dolphins can’t count on “FitzMagic” forever
Even if Tagovailoa is drafted by the Dolphins, he likely won’t start the season as their quarterback.
That job still belongs, for now, to Ryan Fitzpatrick, who turns 38 during the 2020 season and is entering his 16th year in the league. Fitzpatrick won a battle with Josh Rosen for the starting job last season and gave Miami a spark of “FitzMagic.” Behind him, the supposedly-tanking Dolphins went 5-4 over their last nine games. They scored more than 25 points per game after Week 8, seventh in the NFL in that span.
Fitzpatrick had his moments last season. The best came in the season’s final week when his last-minute touchdown pass to tight end Mike Gesicki helped the Dolphins upset the New England Patriots and rob their AFC East rivals of a bye in the playoffs.
But Fitzpatrick, with one more year left on his contract, is nothing more than a bridge to the Dolphins next quarterback. In the short-term, he can provide the sort of veteran leadership that Tagovailoa can learn from. In the long-term, giving Tagovailoa a year to get healthy and watch Fitzpatrick, who played his first NFL game when Tagovailoa was 7 years old, would be in the best interests of both him and the franchise.