Michael Lombardi has close ties to Bill Belichick, having worked alongside the legendary coach with both the Cleveland Browns and New England Patriots.
So, when Lombardi reported on “The GM Shuffle” podcast last week that Tua Tagovailoa had “flunked” at least two team physicals due to a “multitude of injuries,” some suggested it was an attempt by the former NFL executive to help the Patriots land the Alabama quarterback in the upcoming draft.
Lombardi cleared the air on this week’s podcast, explaining that theory is baloney, especially since Tagovailoa might not fit into the Patriots’ pre-draft grading system.
“I have talked to more and more teams, and this whole notion that Lombardi’s just spreading this bad will about Tua because he wants his friend Bill Belichick to get him, like stop,” Lombardi said. “I know that based on the Patriots’ grading system, a 6-foot quarterback would have to be really, really elite over a long period of time for them to draft him.”
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New England owns the No. 23 pick in the first round, and there’s been a lot of speculation about whether Belichick will draft a quarterback in wake of Tom Brady’s departure. The Patriots’ QB depth chart currently consists of second-year signal-caller Jarrett Stidham and veteran journeyman Brian Hoyer.
It’s unlikely Tagovailoa will be available when the Patriots’ first pick rolls around, even if injury concerns hurt the former Crimson Tide star’s draft stock to some extent. And that’s OK, says Lombardi, because he just doesn’t see the sides being a match, thanks in large to Tagovailoa’s small stature.
“What fans don’t understand is there’s grading systems within every team. Some of them are elaborate, some of them aren’t,” Lombardi said. “You can tell the teams that do a lot of work on them. We spent a lot of time on a grading system. … Belichick and I, as you read the foreword that he wrote in my book, we spent a lot of time in Cleveland on it, talking about how we could modify it. We wanted to be a size, speed team. We wanted to be able to have a limit on how high you could grade players based on the limitations that they had. We wanted a system that was conducive to elimination, not finding.
“So, when people throw that out there, that Tua — at 6 feet tall — is an easy target for the Patriots, stop. Because knowing their system, it is hard to get that grade high enough for him to get up there.”
It’ll be fascinating to see where Tagovailoa lands in the draft. The Miami Dolphins and Los Angeles Chargers both could use quarterbacks at Nos. 5 and 6, respectively, and Tagovailoa and Oregon’s Justin Herbert are widely considered the top two options beyond Joe Burrow, who’s expected to be chosen No. 1 overall by the Cincinnati Bengals.
One probably shouldn’t expect Tagovailoa to wind up in New England, even if he slips down the board, though. The more likely scenario seems to involve the Patriots selecting a quarterback later in the draft, with Stidham having every opportunity to succeed Brady as the team’s new starter in 2020.
