Cam and Tua are losing value because of questionable health
Updated Monday, April 20, 2020
Cam Newton and Tua Tagovailoa have not contracted coronavirus, yet they’re afflicted by it. They are two of America’s most talented quarterbacks, but their value is curtailed by medical issues. Because of the devastating pandemic they are essentially quarantined. They can’t visit any NFL teams that would like to probe their bodies and evaluate their health.
Newton was the league’s Most Valuable Player in 2015 as a combination passer/runner unlike any the sport has seen. He threw for 35 touchdowns and ran for 10. At 6-5, 245 pounds he’s a larger, more powerful version of Lamar Jackson, last season’s MVP.
Newton considered himself indestructible; after running for a touchdown he would pantomime Superman pulling away his cape. But after that transcendent 2015 with the Carolina Panthers he turned vulnerable, sustaining various leg, foot and shoulder injuries over the next four years.
The Panthers last month signed Teddy Bridgewater to be their quarterback and released Newton, a switch that may have had more to do with finances than to winning football games.
With most of the country in lockdown, Newton could not visit teams and demonstrate his skills. All he could do was distribute video that showed him moving well, but that’s not as convincing as hands-on examination. The NFL can’t be sure he’s reliable as an injury-prone, mobile quarterback who next month will be 31. Nobody can time him for a 40-yard dash.
Tagovailoa is another sublime talent with a history of troubling injuries: sprained knee, broken ankles, broken finger, quad injury, fractured hip in three years of playing – and not — for Alabama.
Considering he was well protected by quality linemen for the Crimson Tide, there are grave doubts this radiant Hawaiian can long endure in pro football.
Without the health issue, the lefthanded Tagovailoa might be the No. 1 overall pick in Thursday’s NFL Draft. Trent Dilfer, retired Super Bowl-winning QB, has been working out with Tagovailoa since January and proclaims him “the best quarterback in the draft,” with an arm as strong as that of Aaron Rodgers.
But because of his perceived brittleness and no way to inspect him, Tagovailoa will be chosen not only behind LSU’s Joe Burrow but probably behind Oregon’s maddeningly inconsistent Justin Herbert. This would annoy thousands of Miami Dolphins fans who were all in on “tanking for Tua.”
Hoping to allay the doubts, Tagovailoa released his own video showing him throwing comfortably. But doubts remain.
Chris Simms, a former NFL starting QB who now comments for NBC Sports Network, viewed the video and said, “It’s great to see the kid moving around and throwing the football, showing he’s close to a hundred percent healthy. But the workout was very controlled – a lot of easy throws.
“There was nothing that made me say, ‘Wow, he’s back.’ The ball does not pop and explode out of his hands. If Justin Herbert were throwing, it would be like a tracer through the air.”
Simms feels the player’s injury rate is not a matter of bad luck but of failure to protect himself. “When I watched him on film I noticed how many times his body is compromised in bad positions. He likes to dance around the pocket and escape the rush, but this is not Lamar Jackson or Deshaun Watson. I’m guessing Tua would run a low 4.7 (40-yard dash).”
Simms compared him to Johnny Manziel being very elusive in college but “not fast enough to escape all the edge rushers in the NFL.”
Another negative on Tua emerged when word leaked that his Wonderlic score was the lowest of the 12 quarterbacks at the Scouting Combine. Wonderlic is an intelligence test that hasn’t proved very predictive. Hall of Famers Dan Marino and Brett Favre had below-average Wonderlics. So did Lamar Jackson, last year’s MVP. But combined with Tagovailoa’s occasional indecisiveness in the pocket and his physical impairments, a Wonderlic of 13 has impact.
Most NFL mock drafts have Burrow going No. 1 to Cincinnati and the Dolphins at No. 5 veering away from Tua and taking Herbert, leaving the Los Angeles Chargers to claim Tagovailoa at No. 6. Simms insisted, “Unless the Chargers go for Tua, I’d be shocked if he’s drafted in the top 10.”
Mike Florio, Simms’ cohort on Pro Football Talk, said, “Someone I trust very much told me, ‘We want our guys who are accountable to us to examine Tua Tagovailoa. That’s the only doctor we can trust.’
“If you roll the dice on Tua and it blows up in your face, good luck saving your job when you go to the owner and explain why you took him with all the chatter out there about health issues.”
In this game of musical chairs, Cam Newton is left standing.
There’s much media speculation that New England is interested. But Bill Belichick requires unerring accuracy on the short and middle throws, and that’s not Newton’s game. And it’s hard to see the dour Belichick being charmed by Newton’s whimsical fashion show, appearing in Hollywood costuming at postgame pressers.
Newton will wait for the draft to unfold and then talk to teams that are still unhappy with their quarterbacks.
The Jacksonville Jaguars’ best offensive player, Leonard Fournette, is advocating for Newton, but the team seems committed, for the time being, to Gardner Minshew after a promising rookie season.
The Pittsburgh Steelers can’t be sure about 38-year-old Ben Roethlisberger’s comeback from elbow surgery. An obvious possibility is Washington, where Newton’s former coach Ron Rivera is probably not enamored of Dwayne Haskins or Kyle Allen.
The Chargers remain a possibility, especially with Tagovailoa sliding if not tumbling. They’d like a splashy quarterback as they open play in a new stadium in Hollywoodland, and charismatic Cam would be box office. Their trumpeting of journeyman Tyrod Taylor falls on deaf ears.
Once the pandemic restrictions end, any team interested in Newton will be able to check him out and work him out. Unfortunately, the pickings are not what they would have been without social distancing intervening. Newton might have to wait for training camps to open and injuries to occur to someone else.
