Ryan Leaf explains why he's not sold on Tua Tagovailoa as an NFL quarterback
Alabama star Tua Tagovailoa ended the speculation over his football future on Monday by declaring for the 2020 NFL Draft, and despite the serious hip injury that cut his college career short earlier this year, Tagovailoa is expected to be a first-round draft pick that could potentially be selected inside the top 10. Tagovailoa was widely considered to be the best QB available in the 2020 class at the start of the college football season, but the rise of Joe Burrow, combined with Tagovailoa’s multiple injuries, has hurt his stock somewhat.
Not everyone is sold on Tagovailoa as a surefire franchise quarterback, however. During an appearance on The Dan Patrick Show, ESPN analyst Ryan Leaf, famously taken behind Payton Manning in the 1998 NFL Draft, Leaf said that he feels that Tagovailoa will struggle with one of the same things he struggled with during his short NFL career – avoiding pressure and hits from defenders.
“He’s done everything in college to make you believe he’s going to be a great quarterback. I just, for whatever reason, don’t know if his game translates to the next level. And it’s nothing against the kid. I think he’s amazing, he throws the ball more accurately down the field than I think I’ve ever seen a quarterback in college. To your point a little bit earlier, the game’s changing. It’s more about getting outside the pocket, doing things differently, and every time he did do that, he got pulled down, he got chased down, he got injured. And that for me is a red flag, it just is.
…. I feel like – if you feel like he’s going to change at the next level, guys get faster, bigger, stronger, right? That was the biggest change for me, like I could run away from the 300-pound defensive linemen in college, and then all of the sudden I decided to loop out of the pocket and I figure I’m going to get to the outside just fine, then you’ve got a guy like Warren Sapp who’s 320 pounds, who runs a 4.4 and he pulls you down, and you’re just like ‘whoa, where am I?'”