Miami Dolphins might love Tua Tagovailoa as much as we thought they did
Recent buzz around the Miami Dolphins in the 2020 NFL Draft has said they’re less enamored with Tua Tagovailoa but that may be a smokescreen after all.
For many months, the Miami Dolphins appeared locked in to select Tua Tagovailoa with their top-five pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. In recent weeks, however, that has become less clear. There has been growing buzz that the Dolphins — and many other teams for that matter — are lower on the Alabama quarterback than many others.
Well, at least that’s what we were being told. But that may not be the case.
On Friday, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that the Dolphins made a last-minute rush to try and get Tua Tagovailoa in to meet with their doctors prior to the NFL ceasing all meetings between teams and prospects. Ultimately, they were unable to get their meeting with Tua in, though Miami’s doctors were able to get some time with Tagovailoa at the NFL Combine.
On the night before the league halted visits between college prospects and NFL teams, the Dolphins rushed to try to get Tua Tagovailoa to Miami, per a source. Tagovailoa was the first college prospect the Dolphins tried to bring to Miami in March. But March 13, NFL banned visits.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 17, 2020
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There are a couple of things this could mean. In truth, the fact that the Miami Dolphins doctors haven’t been able to meet with Tagovailoa and wanted to prior to March 13 when the league banned visits could mean they are uncertain about his medicals. Coming off a devastating hip injury and several lower-body injuries in college, that’s very much in play here.
At the same time, however, it’s also in play that the Dolphins have been sending up one smokescreen after another to try and suppress Tagovailoa’s value. And in that case, it’s also not hard to see why.
If Miami is as enamored with Tua as we initially thought prior to the recent reports, then there was always going to be the potential that a team would try to trade ahead of the No. 5 pick, thus forcing the Dolphins’ hand to spend valuable draft capital to trade up themselves. That’s not ideal as they have three first-round picks they could use on their roster.
Subsequently, by spreading reports that they (and maybe even the other teams) are not high on Tua, the Dolphins could possibly create enough of a stir that they would not need to trade up from the No. 5 pick.
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Frankly, the notion of this being a smokescreen seems more likely to me than any other possibility. That doesn’t mean it’s 100 percent the case but it’s definitely a possibility. I suppose we’ll find out when the 2020 NFL Draft gets underway on Thursday, April 23.