Tua Tagovailoa instantly became one of the biggest wild card prospects in the 2020 NFL Draft class after he suffered a season-ending injury at Alabama, but his situation became even more uncertain due to the coronavirus crisis. Tagovailoa attended the NFL Combine and was able to meet with teams, but was unable to make any visits to organizations in March after the NFL banned player visits on March 13th to combat the spread of COVID-19.
As a result, no NFL team was able to get up-to-date information on Tagovailoa’s physical condition, and have been forced to rely on his recent workout tapes and assurances that he feels ready to start Week 1. It’s possible that Tagovailoa is the best QB prospect in the class, even over presumptive No. 1 pick Joe Burrow, but will a team feel comfortable spending a top-5 pick and betting their future on him?
Many mock drafts around the internet have Tagovailoa landing in Miami, which holds the No. 5 pick in the first round, but Justin Herbert could easily jump ahead of Tagovailoa in the order. According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Miami was desperate to bring Tagovailoa in for a physical just before the NFL instituted its ban, and was frantically working the day before to make a visit happen. Unfortunately for the Dolphins, and possibly for Tagovailoa, that visit never happened.
“As it turns out, on Thursday, March 12th, when this country began to undergo a change it’s still feeling today, and the NFL was about to ban visits, the Dolphins and Tua were rushing to finalize a visit to make Tua the first college prospect to visit the Dolphins before the league turned out to ban visits on Friday, March 13th. They were trying to put it together desperately on Thursday the 12th, but could not figure it out, as much as they tried.
And so at the last moment the visit went by the wayside, Tua was unable to go to Miami on Friday, March 13th as the Dolphins wanted. They wanted to put him through an extensive physical with their doctors there. The visit didn’t happen, and so now the last time the Dolphins’ doctors have seen Tua was at the Combine. And now, of course, everybody’s left to wonder where they’re at on Tua.”
[polldaddy poll=10539024]
[jwplayer QhTqdpg2-q2aasYxh]