Tua Tagovailoa holds virtual pro day, appears to be healthy

Tua Tagovailoa held a virtual pro day for NFL teams and reportedly played well. Will this help get his 2020 NFL Draft stock back on track.

Former Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is the biggest wildcard in the 2020 NFL Draft. He was a dominant performer in college and appeared on track to be a top-notch franchise quarterback at the next level. However, durability has been a concern for Tua and the devastating hip injury that he suffered last season did not help matters.

According to Les Carpenter of the Washington Post, “Tagovailoa held a virtual pro day at an undisclosed location in Nashville on Thursday afternoon.” Former NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer ran the workout as Tagovailoa and his team are trying to prove that he is healthy and ready to make an impact in the NFL.

“Dilfer described Thursday’s session as a “themed pro day” and built the workout to show four elements of Tagovailoa’s game: twitch, movement, power and precision,” according to Carpenter. The entire workout was videotaped and the raw footage will now be sent to all 32 NFL teams. With NFL teams not being able to meet with prospects in person, this was the only way for Tua Tagovailoa to prove that he is healthy and ready to compete.

Late on Thursday, Dilfer, through ESPN’s Chris Mortensen, detailed the 72-throw workout. Dilfer had a third-party quarterback coach grade the workout and the results are impressive. Of the 52 throws made on routes, 38 were considered a perfect throw, 11 were made with run after catch accuracy, one where the wide receiver made the quarterback looked good and two were considered misses.

Based on those grades by a third-party quarterback coach, it sounds like Tua was awfully impressive. “His drop the mic throw was his last of the day… his 72nd throw was a 5 step drop, lateral move to his left, then flat sprint right and throw it 40 yards moving full speed away from his arm side. He ripped a DIME!” Dilfer wrote.

Dilfer continued, “This kid has as much horsepower as you could ever want and incredible twitch to go with it. I’ve never been around a kid that throws it better.” High praise for the former Alabama quarterback.

We all knew that Tua Tagovailoa has the skill-set to be a star quarterback at the next level. One does not have to watch much of his tape to see that. He is a smart and stable quarterback who places the ball on a dime a majority of the time. Tua shows incredible natural accuracy to all levels of the field, throws the ball well on the run and knows how to put the proper touch on his passes. The only questions here are his health and durability.

Tagovailoa appears to be healthy and on track to play in 2020 if he lands in the right situation. Durability is always going to be a concern here, but if that hip is really healing as well as it seems, there is no reason why he should fall past the top six picks in the 2020 NFL Draft.

With Joe Burrow widely expected to go number one overall to the Cincinnati Bengals, the Miami Dolphins and Los Angeles Chargers, picking No. 5 and 6 respectively, stand out as the most logical landing spots for Tagovailoa. However, do not count out a quarterback-needy team trading up from later in the draft to make him their franchise quarterback.

No matter where he ends up, Tua Tagovailoa is an extremely impressive and exciting quarterback prospect who has a bright future ahead of him. Could we have a bidding war for his services on our hands in the 2020 NFL Draft? If he looked as good at his virtual pro day as Dilfer says, that could certainly be the case.