Tua Tagovailoa is the Most Overrated Player in the 2020 NFL Draft

Do not draft Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa with a top 10 pick. Just don’t. He’s overrated. This is free advice for the 49ers and for every other NFL team.

He isn’t bad -- he was a phenom in college, and might be good in the NFL. But he comes with far too many questions and issues to merit a top-10 selection in the upcoming draft.

Here are his issues:

1. Tagovailoa played on a college All Star team. No exaggeration. He played at Alabama with two players who were first-round draft picks in 2019: Jonah Williams and Josh Jacobs. And he played with seven players who probably will be first-rounders in 2020 or 2021: Jedrick Wills Jr., Jerry Jeudy, Henry Ruggs III, Jaylen Waddle, Devonta Smith, Najee Harris and Alex Leatherwood. Plus, Tagovailoa played with tight end Irv Smith Jr., who was a second-round pick in 2019. He plays for the Vikings now.

Any decent quarterback would have played well at Alabama. Imagine if quarterback Jordan Love had played at Alabama behind that amazing offensive line. Love might have won the Heisman Trophy. Instead, he played at a small school, Utah State. He’s a better prospect than Tagovailoa.

2. Tagovailoa is an improviser. He’s also a skilled passer, but he’s small -- only 6’0”. And he’s not nearly as skilled as another short quarterback, Drew Brees -- you’ve heard of him. Tagovailoa intrigues teams because he improvises and scrambles like Steve Young, Russell Wilson and Kyler Murray. But Tagovailoa isn’t as athletic or elusive as them. Not even close. He’s even less athletic than Love.

3. Tagovailoa exposes himself to big hits. He doesn’t protect himself. Wilson and Murray are former baseball players who know how to slide and gracefully avoid career-threatening hits. Tagovailoa can’t seem to avoid them. He attracts them.

4. Tagovailoa had three surgeries in just one-and-a-half seasons as a college starter. His body couldn’t support his playing style in the SEC -- defenders ran him down and hit him hard and injured him. How will Tagovailoa’s body hold up in the NFL where the players are bigger, stronger and faster, and the collisions are much more violent?

5. Teams can’t keep close checks on Tagovailoa’s injuries and recovery with their own doctors during this pandemic. He hasn’t played a real football game since he dislocated his hip last season. Normally, teams would send their trainers and doctors to examine Tagovailoa, but they can’t this year because Covid-19 has prevented face-to-face contact between teams and draft prospects. Meaning teams will have to trust the medical report of a third-party doctor they don’t know. How can any team confidently use a top pick on an injured player it hasn’t checked personally?

If Tagovailoa were to drop all the way to the 49ers at pick 13, they should pass on him and not think twice.