Miami’s misdirection led to drafting Tua

Dolphins play misdirection to land QB Tagovailoa

The Big Lie started back in February with a subtle chumming of the waters about how the Miami Dolphins didn’t rate Tua Tagovailoa as a high draft pick, and besides, they liked Oregon quarterback Justin Herbert better. Some bought it. They then put stone on their face and ice in their words to suggest indifference when meeting Tagovailoa, face to face, for the requisite interview at the Indianapolis draft combine. Enough talked of it. Finally, the final hours before Thursday’s draft were spent dropping bread crumbs about how they could trade up to take an offensive tackle. Not just with Detroit at the third pick; they might even swap picks with the New York Giants, who picked one spot ahead of the Dolphins at No. 4.

Lies, all small lies assembling the Big Lie on Thursday night when the Dolphins made Tagovailoa their top pick. It was part of a misdirection game Dolphins general manager Chris Grier and coach Brian Flores played to an information-starved media in the long months and tense hours leading up to the decision. Did any of it matter? Who knows? Maybe Tua would be a Dolphin today regardless. Maybe this paved the way by keeping another team away from him, but the air was uncertain around the

Dolphins.

“You couldn’t get a real read on what they were doing,’’ one frontoffice type on another AFC team said. “I guessed Tua, but that’s all it was — a guess.”

That’s the draft for the Dolphins. Tua decides whether this past year of pain and sacrifice was a good game plan leading to a better future. “Tank for Tua” is now “Trust in Tua,” for better or worse, success or further injury.

Oh, the Dolphins kept laying a good foundation with the rest of their picks.

They needed an offensive tackle and took USC’s Austin Jackson. Auburn cornerback Noah Igbinoghene raises that position to a best-in-the-business plateau. In the second round Friday night, they drafted offensive lineman Robert Hunt from Louisiana-Lafayette at No. 39.

A safety? Running back? Depth to develop on the lines? That is on menu coming up. But you see the vision for this team coming together between building out the defense in free agency and the three first-round picks.

Let’s not overdo this: Between spending $142 million in free agency and having five picks in the draft’s first two rounds, the ingredients were there to give this franchise a facelift.

They made the right move to make Tua the face of it. With his history of injuries,

the Dolphins now need some luck for it to become the right pick. Grier talked of it being a “violent game” and how “guys are going to get hurt.”

All true, but the risk is there and obvious. Former Dolphins vice president of football Mike Tannenbaum said in March it would be “irresponsible” for a team to draft Tagovailoa in the top 10. Former NFL coach Rex Ryan called it the “biggest gamble in the history of the draft.”

“We’ve always talked about going through the process,’’ Grier said. “Brian [Flores], myself, the coaching staff and scouts — watching him for a couple years and finally meeting him at the [NFL] combine and getting to know him and find out what type of person he really is, which we all heard great things.”

They didn’t let on about that. No team does in the draft. But it was especially important with Tua, considering he may have rivaled LSU’s Joe Burrow as the top pick if not for the injuries.

That’s where the misdirection game came into play. It all came into focus afterward.

Herbert? If they rated him higher, they would have taken him. The Los Angeles Chargers took him at sixth, a spot behind the Dolphins.

Trading up for a tackle? That may have prevented the Giants, who drafted tackle Andrew Thomas with the fourth pick, from losing that chance if they swapped picks with the Chargers.

“We had talked with different teams in front of us and behind us, actually, but nothing made sense for us,’’ Chargers GM Tom Telesco said.

The Chargers got the man they wanted too. Of course they did.

“These are the players you like to work with,’’ he said.

Maybe that’s right. Maybe he’s playing a post-draft game of deception of his own.

All you know is the Dolphins played it first, played it right and got the player they wanted.

AP Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa was selected by the Dolphins with the No. 5 in the NFL draft.