Titans Doctor Checked on Tagovailoa For Rest of NFL
The Tennessee Titans won’t have the opportunity to draft Tua Tagovailoa. But they will have a say in which team does select the former University of Alabama quarterback.
Dr. Thomas Byrd, the Titans’ team physician since 2003, performed a voluntary recheck on Tagovailoa on Thursday. The exam included input from team doctors and trainers around the league who were allowed to offer input on what procedures they wanted done. Dr. Byrd then shared his conclusions with the entire league.
Agents for Tagovailoa, one of the top quarterback prospects – and one of the top overall prospects – available in the 2020 NFL Draft, told ESPN the results “were overwhelmingly positive.”
Dr. Byrd is a renowned hip surgeon who pioneered an arthroscopic procedure that is commonly used today. He first worked with the Titans in 1997-98, when they were the Tennessee Oilers, and then returned to the franchise five years later. He also has served as the team physician for the United States Olympic team and serves as consulting orthopedic surgeon for other NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB and WNBA teams.
His expertise with hip issues is serendipitous given that Tagovailoa has been in Nashville as he prepares for the draft. Specifically, he has worked with former NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer, now a high school coach in the area.
Tagovailoa sustained a dislocated hip and posterior wall fracture, an injury more commonly associated with car accidents, in a mid-November game against Mississippi State. A month earlier, he had a procedure performed on his right ankle, which was injured in a game against the University of Tennessee.
He was a Heisman Trophy finalist in 2018 and was on pace for a better season, statistically, before the hip injury.
“Tua asked me, after he declared for the draft, if I would handle his pre-draft preparation,” Dilfer told the NFL Network last week. “… As much of it has been mentoring as it has been coaching, but now that he’s been cleared medically we’re getting after it, in terms of his preparation.
“… If you just woke up from a coma (after) a year and didn’t know what had happened, you wouldn’t think anything has changed. He looks as good – if not better – than he did pre-injuries.”
