NFL Draft: Bad information is circulating about Tua Tagovailoa

Not everything being written about Tua Tagovailoa and the NFL Draft is accurate. Draft misinformation is common and is often generated by NFL teams.

Football fans would be wise to use caution when reading about Tua Tagovailoa, his health and the NFL Draft. Some things being written are untrue. It is common for NFL teams to shroud their Draft plans in misinformation. The injury history of Tua Tagovailoa provides ample opportunity to make faulty claims.

The most recent example of bad information comes via Yahoo Sports and is accurately categorized as rumor. “Former NFL front office executive Michael Lombardi” is identified as the source. Based on Lombardi’s comments in a podcast, Lombardi claims Tua failed an NFL team “physical.”

Is Lombardi making a statement of fact or is he sharing a baseless rumor? Since no one, outside an NFL team, has the details of closely guarded NFL physicals – the claim could either be fact or fiction.

What makes the claim suspect are the elaborating details provided by Lombardi.

"What they saw…is they saw the fact it’s not just his hip. It’s his ankle. It’s his wrist. He broke his wrist the first day of spring ball one year. And then they fixed it, he came back, and he broke it again."

Unless past, University of Alabama official word, from Nick Saban cannot be believed, Lombardi has at least one fact wrong. Tua did not break his wrist and then break it again. What happened during spring football is he broke a digit on his hand. It happened in spring, 2018 and was reported by NBC Sports as a “broken index finger on his throwing hand.” Forbes recently re-reported the same injury in a list of Tua’s Crimson Tide injury history.

Knowing Lombardi did not have his facts straight casts doubt about any of his other claims. A less direct but still suspect claim is the inference Tua’s ankles portend future problems. Medical experts agree ‘ankle tightrope procedures’ actually make the injured portion of an ankle, stronger than it was before and less likely to be reinjured.

Was Lombardi knowingly sowing doubt about Tua to aid misinformation by an NFL team? There is no proof he was. What we do know is he is no medical expert. The quote below is not a medical opinion.

"And he’s brittle. You can’t deny it. You can’t deny it."

Brittle bones only exist because of the disease ‘Osteogenesis Imperfecta.’  A detailed medical report on this genetic abnormality can be found here. Unless it has been hidden by the University of Alabama medical team and the Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center in Houston, where Tua had hip surgery, Tua has never been diagnosed with the disease.

Next, football fans may read the nationally renowned Andrews Sports Clinic, Memorial Hermann, Nick Saban and the University of Alabama have been engaged in a massive coverup of Tua’s physical condition. If so, the conspiracy claim will probably be started, surreptitiously, by an NFL team hoping to shape the NFL Draft.

A guess on what is going on with Tua? The Dolphins or some other team are hoping they don’t have to trade up to select him.