Tua injury draft impact … The buzz continues to percolate around the NFL regarding the devastating hip injury star Alabama junior QB Tua Tagovailoa suffered last weekend and its potential impact on the early picks at the 2020 draft. Of course, so much will depend on what the doctors say about Tagovailoa’s condition based on pre-draft medical tests. Talking to people around the league, though, one gets the sense the impact of Tua’s injury may not be quite as great as it might have earlier season when ‘tanking for Tua’ was all the rage. Fact is, it appears that there was already a consensus around the league even before Tagovailoa was hurt that he had already been supplanted as the top QB prospect by LSU’s Joe Burrow, while Ohio State DE Chase Young had emerged as the #1 prospect overall. There also appears to have been a growing sense around the league that Justin Herbert of Oregon had also moved ahead of Tagovailoa on most team’s QB boards. It appears, that if healthy, most teams still consider Tagovailoa to be a top 5-10 prospect, but there are real concerns about his lack of prototype size – he’s barely 6-1 – and rather average arm strength. Again, though, so much will ultimately depend on pre-draft medical examination of Tagovailoa’s hip prior to the draft.
