Tua Tagovailoa and the other big winners of blockbuster NFL Draft trades

Tua Tagovailoa gets his audition as the Miami Dolphins’ QB of the future, which NFL Draft prospect ‘ran his way out of the NFL Draft,’ and much more.

The Miami Dolphins were previously sitting in the three-hole of next month’s NFL Draft quarterback bonanza. On Friday, they instead opted to execute a pair of trades Friday to move back, collect assets for the next two drafts, and commit to quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.

At least for now.

For this season, the Dolphins are sticking with Tagovailoa over the best remaining passers behind Trevor Lawrence. Think one of Ohio State’s Justin Fields, North Dakota State’s Trey Lance, Alabama’s Mac Jones, or in a long-shot possibility, BYU’s Zach Wilson.

Friday’s trades netted the Dolphins the San Francisco 49ers’ 2022 first-round pick, 2022 third-round pick, and 2023 third-round pick, to ultimately move back to the No. 6 overall pick in a deal with the Philadelphia Eagles. They also give Miami plenty of bites at the quarterback apple the next two years should Tagovailoa struggle during his audition as the quarterback of the future in South Beach in 2021.

“He has a ways to go,” a former general manager tells FanSided. “But his intangibles really stand out. Tua has a strong leadership presence, high-intelligence.

“When he’s in the pocket, it seems like he’s pretty accurate when he has time and knows where to go with the football.”

Tagovailoa’s rookie season was a rollercoaster ride, in which he completed 64.1 percent of his passes for 1,814 yards with 11 touchdowns and five interceptions while winning six of his nine starts. But, he also took 20 sacks and had an 18.8 bad-throw percentage.

“Tua’s not better than the guys in this draft,” an AFC scout tells FanSided. “But, he isn’t that much worse that the Dolphins with the same GM, head coach, and staff could justify taking a quarterback No. 3 overall just one year after  after taking one at No. 5.”

Dolphins general manager Chris Grier is banking on being able to turn the No. 6 overall pick this year into a difference-making playmaker, and Tagovailoa developing into a better quarterback long-term than the passers at the top of this year’s class will in coming years.

For Grier, it was a rapid and adept acquisition of draft capital, that underscores his value of picks and a bold strategy to position the Dolphins to continue adding elite talent through the draft in coming years.

Still, not everyone is convinced though that Grier made the right move.

“It’s really too be determined how good Tua can be,” an NFL head coach tells FanSided, on the condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to discuss players on other teams. “But, I’ll say this, he’s not Trevor Lawrence or Zach Wilson. The rest? Time will tell.”

Meanwhile, San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch is making a similar but inverse bet to Grier’s.

By acting boldly, Lynch the 49ers clearly believe that Fields, Wilson, Lance, and Jones all have the potential to develop into elite NFL quarterbacks, and are now positioned to drop the third quarterback chosen in the draft into their offense.

Fields’ impressive showing in Columbus during Ohio State’s pro day on Tuesday serves to only help Lynch and the 49ers.

Either the Jets remain committed to Zach Wilson with the No. 2 pick, or trade the selection, and if Lynch believes Fields’ dominant collegiate college career translates to the NFL he’ll be able to scoop him up after paying a lofty price to get him.

But, even though several scouts and executives across the NFL believe Wilson is the best quarterback not named “Trevor Lawrence” in this class, and some even list him as QB1, perhaps Jets GM Joe Douglas is swayed enough by Fields’ final exam during the Buckeyes’ pro day to choose him No. 2 overall.

Either way, Lynch would appear to win.

However, make no mistake, Lynch is staking his job — and the 49ers’ future — on a trade and a pick that has far more cautionary tales than sure-things in recent years.

Of the 10 quarterbacks chosen with a top-five pick since 2015, only four have won a playoff game, and just two more have appeared in a postseason game so far in their career:

Joe Burrow: 0 Playoff wins

Tua Tagovailoa: 0 Playoff wins

Justin Herbert: 0 Playoff wins

Kyler Murray: 0 Playoff wins

Baker Mayfield: 1 playoff win

Mitchell Trubisky: 0 Playoff wins

Carson Wentz: 0 Playoff wins

Jared Goff: 3 Playoff wins

Marcus Mariota: 3 Playoff wins

Jameis Winston: 1 playoff win

Lynch’s aggressiveness should be applauded, because two years removed from a Super Bowl appearance, the 49ers are boldly attempting to find a long-term solution at quarterback.

But, given recent history, it’s probably worth tempering unbridled enthusiasm for the trade or expectations for the quarterback they wind up choosing next month.

In addition to Tagovailoa, there are two other big winners of these trades; the Dolphins, and the Philadelphia Eagles.

The Dolphins war chest of picks sets up to quickly accelerate a rebuild that already features a bevy of young talent on both sides of the ball while creating optionality at quarterback if Tua disappoints.

Similarly to Tagovailoa in Miami, Jalen Hurts gets one season to prove to general manager Howie Roseman and new head coach Nick Sirianni that he can lead the Eagles back to the postseason and beyond, following a mediocre rookie season for the young quarterback and disastrous 2020 campaign for the team.

But, much like the Dolphins’ commitment to Tagovailoa is a tacit one, so too is the Eagles’ to Hurts.

Thanks to Friday’s trade, and the blockbuster that sent Carson Wentz to the Indianapolis Colts, the Eagles could have as many as three first-round picks in 2022. If Wentz plays 75 percent of the Colts’ snaps or Indianapolis makes the postseason, the Eagles would own their own pick, the Colts’ first-rounder, and Miami’s.

If Hurts improves dramatically in his second season, the Eagles can add as many as three premium pieces around him. But, if not, even if the Eagles are slated to pick somewhere in the pick six-through-eight range next spring, are now armed with more than enough ammunition to move up to snag Hurts’ potential successor.

Each of the picks that changed hands Friday are lottery tickets. Turning those picks into players will ultimately decide who “won” and who “lost” the moves, and just might determine Grier’s, Roseman’s, and Lynch’s fates.

While last week’s trades will shape the NFL Draft, they’ll also be inextricably tied to the roster building and trajectory of three franchises for years to come.

Pro days work out both ways

While some dismiss the impact of pro days, many evaluators place heavy emphasis on the testing results on campuses across the country in the weeks leading up to the NFL Draft.

This year, two prospects in particular went in different directions following their pro day performances.

Penn State edge rusher Jayson Oweh has been rising up draft boards across the league, thanks to the lofty ceiling his athleticism and 6-foot-5 and 252-pound frame seem to give him at the next level, despite the fact that he didn’t produce a sack during the 2020 season.

“Oweh’s lack of stats colored a lot of people’s views of him in my building,” a scout tells FanSided. “But, seeing him run a sub-4.4 at that size, and the fact that his tape was really good, even without the sacks, he justified my high first-round grade at his pro day.”

Meanwhile, just as Oweh’s 4.36 second 40-yard dash, 39.5-inch vertical jump and an 11-foot, 2-inch broad jump helped his cause, another defensive prospect could tumble after his.

Two hours west of Happy Valley, Pittsburgh defensive back Paris Ford did himself no favors during the Panthers’ pro day.

Ford entered his pro day, hoping to solidify his chances at being chosen on Day 2 of the NFL Draft after producing 41 total tackles and three interceptions last season.

That likely won’t be the case, now.

Ford’s vertical jump was disappointing, at just 28.5 inches, but his 40-yard dash was a disastrous 4.83 seconds.

“He ran his way out of the draft with that performance,” the scout said of Ford.

Not what you want to hear.

Some will bemoan pro days as “Underwear Olympics,” but the reality is these metrics give teams an unvarnished glimpse at the type of athlete they will get the chance to mold in their system, in their building, and stripped of some of the limitations of a player’s performance in a particular program’s system.

The challenge facing Oweh, Ford, and every other prospect is how much each team  values stats and production against measurable. Pro days only show so much, but what happens with Ford and Oweh next month could at least partially to the results of their pro day results.

Podcast

Quotable

"“All of us in the NFL want to see every one of our fans back. Football is simply not the same without fans and we expect to have full stadiums in the 2021 season.”"

– NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, via Pro Football Talk.

I think the NFL deserves a lot of credit for what they have done to make Goodell — and every team’s — goal a reality.

Last weekend, the Eagles’ charitable wing, the Eagles Autism Foundation, hosted a vaccine clinic in a sensory area of Lincoln Financial Field for people with autism and their families. Meanwhile, the league has administered over one million COVID-19 vaccines at 15 stadiums across the country.

Those sites won’t just make it more likely that stadiums can be pact with screaming fans this fall, but that the communities these teams are based in will be significantly safer, significantly quicker because of the high-volume of people that can pass through each site every day.

For all of the NFL’s missteps in terms of handling social justice in recent years, the league got this one right.

Between physically getting shots in arms at stadiums, joining other leagues in a television ad that has aired during the NCAA Tournament and golf broadcasts encouraging sports fans to get vaccinated so they can return to stadiums, and other actions, the NFL and professional sports are taking a leadership role in leading us all out of the pandemic just as their shutting down last spring was a harbinger of the pain to come.

Final thought

The 2021 NFL season will be different than any that came before, and the first since 1978 with more games played than the year before.

17 games have arrived.

Get ready for more football.

Soon, get ready for the highly-anticipated Super Bowl on Presidents Day Weekend.

While there are legitimate concerns over player safety adding in another regular-season game, this is a watershed victory in terms or revenue for both the league and the union, and a great thing for fans of the sport.

Players, while shouldering the additional injury risk, will now receive a larger piece of the revenue pie. Plus, as one player told me recently, watch for one more benefit for players possibly coming soon; even more changes to offseason and in-season rules to adjust to the added labor.

But, on the surface, this proposition looks like a win for all parties involved.

The league gets to collect the gate receipts and television revenue from an additional game. Fans get to watch, wager on, and potentially get one more game with playoff implications for their favorite team.

In the end, and remember this in the doldrums of June and July, isn’t more quality football what we all want? Now we’re all going to get it.

Matt Lombardo is the site expert for GMenHQ, and writes Between The Hash Marks each Wednesday for FanSided. Follow Matt on Twitter: @MattLombardoNFL.