Tua Tagovailoa Smokescreen Explained by Dolphins GM Chris Grier

Most of the predraft buzz regarding the Miami Dolphins was that the team preferred Oregon quarterback Justin Herbert over Alabama signal-caller Tua Tagovailoa. That turned out to be a smokescreen, however, with the Dolphins taking Tagovailoa at No. 5 overall. 

Miami general manager Chris Grier told SI.com's Albert Breer that very few people within the organization knew his intentions and that he explored multiple scenarios, including trading up in the draft, but Tagovailoa was his target:

“If Tua was there, we were going to take him. ... You've done so much work on everything, so you feel good about everything. It's weird. It was a sense of calmness. We've done all our work, we felt good about our process, so we identified Tua as a guy that we wanted to take. When he was there, we felt very good about it. There was no apprehension or nervousness, we're very excited to get a player we targeted at this spot. Yeah, it's a key position. Everyone understands you got to have one to win in this league, and we felt good about Tua. There's no nervousness or anything. We just thought he was the right guy.”

So why the smokescreen?

Well, information is power at the NFL draft. If it was common knowledge the Dolphins were locked in on Tagovailoa, another team enamored with him might have tried to trade ahead of them at the draft. That could have either cost the Dolphins Tagovailoa or forced them to get into a bidding war to move up the draft, costing them valuable resources.  

Instead, Miami was able to stand pat at No. 5, draft the guy it wanted and not give up any valuable resources in the process. 

As for why Tagovailoa was the guy, his on-field numbers speak for themselves. In 32 career games over three seasons, the former Alabama quarterback threw for 7,442 yards, 87 touchdowns and 11 interceptions, completing 69.3 percent of his passes. He won a national championship in 2017 and was the Heisman Trophy runner-up in 2018. 

But Grier also cited his demeanor and leadership:

"It's how he carried himself. And how everyone talked about him. Our guys did a lot of work on him, going back to high school. We felt like he had a lot of intangibles that we like, that you look for in leaders of programs. We would spend time talking to some of the other Alabama players, and they just raved about him as a person.

"And again, at the end of the day, it's a challenge that’s going to determine if he's good enough to be your franchise quarterback. But a lot of other intangibles are there, and that's what got us excited."

The only major knock on Tagovailoa coming out of college was his lengthy injury history, but Grier told Breer that the Dolphins all felt comfortable selecting him after he was evaluated by their trainers. 

"He's had some injuries that people talk about, but the part that people miss is a couple of the surgeries he had, he was doing it to rush back sooner, to be with his teammates and play," he said. "Some people may have elected not to do it, and kind of ride it out. He handled adversity well and showed his mental toughness, and his work ethic to come back from those things."