Tua Tagovailoa pro comparisons: The next Drew Brees or Aaron Rodgers

Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback Tua Tagovailoa will be a top-five pick in two weeks. Who are the Hawaiian signal-caller’s best pro comparisons?

Tua Tagovailoa will be one of at least four first-round quarterbacks taken in the upcoming draft.

In three seasons at Alabama, Tagovailoa electrified us with his accuracy, his perfect spiral and his willingness to make plays out of the pocket. Though injuries were very much a part of his college career, Tagovailoa is poised to be a top-five pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. He’ll end up on some team like the Miami Dolphins at No. 5 or the Los Angeles Chargers if they move from No. 6 to get him.

Though LSU’s Joe Burrow will be the first quarterback off the board, Tagovailoa is in a race for second with Oregon’s Justin Herbert and Utah State’s Jordan Love. Tagovailoa should be the second quarterback off the board, but you never know what NFL front offices are thinking.

What this really comes down to is what these NFL teams in need of a quarterback think Tagovailoa will become. Who are his NFL pro comparisons? What is the ceiling and the floor for Tagovailoa as an NFL Draft prospect?

Tua Tagovailoa pro comparisons

In terms of high-end comparisons, two current NFL stars come to mind, as well as one from yesterday.

• ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky compares Tagovailoa to Drew Brees on his throwing abilities.
• CBS views him as a Russell Wilson who can extend plays with his legs.
•  NFL analyst Lance Zierlein offered us a quite a flattering throwback in the form of fellow southpaw Mark Brunell.

Of those three high-end comparisons, which one feels the most accurate? Here’s what the draft analysts had to say about these comps for Tagovailoa.

“This is the organization that, I don’t know, 12 or 13 years ago passed on the opportunity to bring in Drew Brees because of fear of injury,” said Orlovsky. “Ever since that decision, they’ve been trying to find their Drew Brees.”

Tagovailoa’s college coach Nick Saban echoed Orlovsky’s sentiment and added another eyebrow-raising comparison for his quarterback: Aaron Rodgers.

“I think he’s a lot like Drew Brees. I always thought Aaron Rodgers was a lot like that as a player too,” said Saban. “Not overly big, accurate with the ball, really good judgment, decision-making.”

CBS went with Wilson as Tagovailoa’s comp because of his “ability to keep play alive.” They like his dual-threat playmaking ability and his beautiful deep ball, but are concerned about his below-average height and his injury history.

Zierlein believes, “he may be pigeon-holed into a spread or RPO-heavy attack, but he’s actually a clean fit in a pro-style attack filled with play-action and roll-outs.” He also thinks, “teams assessing his draft value will need to sift through mounting durability concerns and decide whether he is a ‘face of the franchise’ talent without the abundance of talent surrounding him.”

Assessing Tua Tagovailoa’s NFL ceiling

Of these three lofty comparisons, the Brees one is the most common. It’s also the most unfair. Comparing a rookie to Brees is so much pressure for one guy to handle. People throw the Brees comparison around all the time, but don’t understand how incredibly difficult it is for a quarterback under 6-feet to succeed in the NFL. Yet with Tagovailoa, the comparison feels oddly justified.

The Wilson comparison is nothing more than a reach because Tagovailoa’s mobility is overstated. Unlike Wilson, Tagovailoa doesn’t avoid getting hit. In fact, he gets hit a lot and gets hurt a lot because of it. The SEC has many great defensive front-seven players, but every defensive lineman and linebacker, he’ll come across is better than what he dealt with in his three years at Alabama.

As for the Brunell comparison, it’s one that makes even more sense the more you think about it. No, it’s not just the southpaw-ed nature of the two, but it’s the accuracy, the decent mobility and the leadership presence that makes this is a very appropriate comparison.

It would be great if Tagovailoa was Brunell, as he was a multi-time Pro Bowler and one of the greatest players in Jacksonville Jaguars history. He took his team to two AFC Championship games in the late 1990s and had a very long NFL career as a backup into the 2000s post-Jacksonville. If Burrow is the next Tony Romo, what’s wrong with Tagovailoa being the next Brunell?

What is Tua Tagovailoa’s NFL floor?

As for lower NFL comparisons for Tagovailoa, here are a few names to keep in mind for what going bad for him at the professional level could look like: Sam Bradford, Matt Leinart and Chad Pennington.

All three quarterbacks starred in college, but injuries derailed their promising careers. Depleting arm talent was Leinart and Pennington’s eventual undoing. Pennington had the best career and played the longest. Bradford never lived up to being the No. 1 overall pick in 2010 but made the most money. Leinart is doing a great job on television for FOX as a college football analyst.

If everything hits, Tagovailoa can be Brees. If things go pretty well for him, he’ll be Brunell. Should things go sideways more than a few times, he’ll be Leinart.

Ultimately, Tagovailoa’s NFL trajectory has a tremendous variance. It is certainly more volatile than Burrow’s, probably more chaotic than Herbert’s and it could go either way about as much as Love’s. Tagovailoa can be a lot of things as an NFL quarterback, but he feels like Brunell than you ever really wanted to imagine.

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