The Miami Dolphins gambled that Tua Tagovailoa would stay healthy in the NFL although his body didn’t hold up in college.
The gamble has failed, while also creating Super Bowl potential for an AFC rival, the Los Angeles Chargers, by handing them Justin Herbert and now Jim Harbaugh.
What’s the lesson, class?
If a QB is hurt often and severely in college despite being surrounded by superior talent, then don’t invest a first-round draft pick in him even when other traits are tempting.
ittedly, QB evaluations can be dicey. They’re far more nuanced than I’m indulging here.
But at the risk of being a Hindsight Harry, I’ll note the durability evaluation wasn’t a difficult one between Tua and Herbert leading up to the 2020 draft.
Nor is it today.
Last week, for example, the two QBs’ respective actions in high-speed football further affirmed the disparity in their ability to stay healthy.
Causing himself a concussion – no less than his third official brain injury suffered in the NFL – Tagovailoa chose to plow into a Bills safety despite having already run for the first down.
Tagovailoa was dealt a jarring blow by his own awkward posture at impact.
After seeing Tagovailoa’s head droop and looking into his eyes, players on each team waved on the medical staff.
Just three days later, Herbert made a similar choice. He altered his run path toward a Panthers defensive back.
Built better than Tua for such collisions, Herbert is also more practiced at surviving them.
Herbert engulfed a Carolina Panthers defender on Sunday and maintained leg drive before landing without incident.
Later, behaving like a running back again, Herbert charged around end and lowered his shoulder into a linebacker.
It may not have been the best decision. It came in the red zone, where the game is faster.
But Herbert looked comfortable and well-positioned to attack as he did.
Again, he popped to his feet afterward.
Herbert isn’t invincible. In his sophomore year with Oregon, he left a game with a broken collarbone after running for a 7-yard score at Cal.
Sunday, after his leg was bent on a hit inside the pocket, he went into the injury tent before returning to the field.
Harbaugh said Monday X-rays were negative, but the QB’s right leg will continue to be evaluated. More will be known Wednesday, when the Chargers begin preparations for Sunday’s road game against the Steelers.
At 6-foot-6 and 240 pounds, Herbert resembles a large tight end in stature. But, importantly, he’s agile, strong and fast.
At 6-foot and 217 pounds, Tagovailoa isn’t smaller than many running backs who’ve survived hundreds of collisions. It’s his body control and other physical characteristics relating to that threaten his career.
The Dolphins, for their part, have failed at building a top-level blocking unit for Tagovailoa but otherwise have done irable work to reduce his injury risk. The same holds for Tagovailoa, whose jiujitsu work two offseasons ago seemed to improve his ability to create better landings.
He played every game last season and tore up several defenses, leading the Dolphins to a wild-card berth.
But as shown by last week’s concussive event, caused by initiating in a play that is not injurious in countless football games at every advanced level, only so much can be done to overcome an unsuitability to collisions and other blows that are inevitable in football.
The fallout
It’s hard to overstate Herbert’s value to the Chargers.
Herbert landed them Harbaugh, and already, the coach and the GM he hired, Joe Hortiz, have made Herbert’s job less difficult. The blocking is much better. Newcomer J.K. Dobbins has shone at running back. The ground game has bludgeoned both opponents.
Plagued by stiffness as a rookie, receiver Quentin Johnston looks looser in the hips and less bulky in the torso perhaps with assistance from Harbaugh’s much-celebrated strength coach who followed him from Michigan.
The Dolphins?
They’re in QB purgatory.
To believe Tagovailoa will hold up as a starter would not be fair to him. Nor would it make sense.
