It is no secret Tua Tagovailoa has an injury history. And that history has teams concerned about his durability going forward.
Beyond his well chronicled hip injury.
Here are the previously reported and undisputed injuries, according to Forbes:
— Broken left index finger (March 2018; no games missed)
— Sprained right knee (October 2018; no games missed)
— Left high ankle sprain (December 2018; surgery; no games missed)
— Right high ankle sprain (October 2019; surgery; 1 game missed)
— Dislocated right hip with posterior acetabular wall fracture (November 2019; surgery; missed final 3.5 games)
But Mike Lombardi, who worked for the San Francisco 49ers, Philadelphia Eagles, Oakland Raiders, Cleveland Browns and New England Patriots front offices and is plugged in among some scouts and personnel departments, recently unloaded on Tagovailoa’s injury history and reported previously unknown information about multiple broken wrists.
And this:
“That’s got to get around that at least one team failed the physical on Tua others have to be concerned now as well.,” Lombardi said on his GM Shuffle podcast. “What they saw … is they saw the fact it’s not just his hip. It’s his ankle. It’s his wrist.
“He broke his wrist the first day of spring ball one year. And then they fixed it, he came back, and he broke it again.”
A wrist broken twice would be new information on the Tagovailoa injury history.
“And he’s brittle,” Lombardi continued. “You can’t deny it. You can’t deny it.”
Lombardi said media draft experts don’t consider durability and injury histories enough in putting together their mock drafts or discussing players on their respective platforms.
“You can say he’s a really good player,” Lombardi said. “They don’t look at the Mark Sanchezes, the Josh Freemans, the Jason Campbells, the JP Losmans. They don’t look at these names that all were hot picks.
“I remember JP Losman was represented by Gary Wichard who Mel Kiper was very close to. They were talking about JP Losman like he was going to be the next coming of Jesus Christ. I mean, and we all make mistakes. We all make mistakes. Look, I’m not disputing the evaluation.
“I’m saying they flunked him on not just the hip, but on a multitude of injuries. The risk far outweighs the reward.”
The Miami Dolphins hold the No. 5 overall selection in the first round and are considering drafting Tagovailoa or Oregon’s Justin Herbert. They are also expected to attempt to trade to the No. 1 overall selection to pick Joe Burrow.
———
©2020 Miami Herald
Visit Miami Herald at www.miamiherald.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.