Prognosis good for Tua
But medical experts predict Dolphins will have to make call on QB without all the facts
“Will he have a risk? Yeah, because he hasn’t re-established health to play again. But assuming that the fracture heals and everything else, there’s no doubt that somebody will think highly of him. It only takes one of 32 teams.”
To a segment of Dolphins fans — perhaps a majority of Dolphins fans — that wasn’t just the Alabama quarterback going down awkwardly Nov. 16 under the weight of two defenders. It wasn’t just the Alabama quarterback screaming in pain as he tried to get up. And it wasn’t just the Alabama quarterback undergoing surgery to repair an unusual football injury.
It was, potentially, the face of the Dolphins for the next decade.
You’re not hearing the phrase “Tank for Tua” anymore, not after he suffered a dislocated right hip and posterior wall fracture requiring surgery. But interviews with two prominent South Florida physicians with decades of experience treating athletes on the Dolphins, Hurricanes, Marlins and Yankees — not to mention evaluating the health of NFL draft prospects — reveals that anyone scratching Tagovailoa off his draft board could regret it.
“Every dislocation is different,” said Dr. Dan Kanell, an orthopedic specialist who spent 23 years as the Dolphins’ team physician. “And so you can’t say what happened to Bo Jackson is going to happen to this kid. This kid can have a very optimistic, total recovery.”
Kanell and Dr. Lee Kaplan, director of the University of Miami’s UHealth Sports Medicine Institute, agree that the next three to six months will be critical in determining the extent of Tagovailoa’s recovery.
Unfortunately, the Dolphins don’t have six months. When they draft in April, they will be making one of the most important decisions in their history — especially if Tagovailoa is available when they select.
So how are NFL teams to make an informed decision on a prospect who had been pegged to go first overall? Kaplan, in his 15th year assisting the Steelers at the combine, outlined the process.
“He’ll have X-rays and MRIs at the combine,” Kaplan said. “People will look and see if the fracture is healed. They’ll evaluate the joint surfaces based on the MRIs, and assuming that he’s healing well, he’ll — at a later date, because he won’t be ready for the combine in three months — he’ll be retested in April or sometime before the draft, with a late pro day. And then you can see him moving around.”
Many questions will be answered. But not all.
“Will he have a risk? Yeah, because he hasn’t re-established health to play again,” Kaplan said. “But assuming that the fracture heals and everything else, there’s no doubt that somebody will think highly of him. It only takes one of 32 teams.”
There are many reasons Kanell and Kaplan might sound more optimistic than you might have expected when Tagovailoa went down. With few examples of football players suffering this type of injury, longtime fans may have flashed back to the most famous case, which ended the career of the multitalented Jackson. The Raiders running back’s problem was avascular necrosis following his dislocation and fracture. AVN occurs when the blood supply to the area is cut off and the bone dies. In Tagovailoa’s case, first responders reset the hip in the socket promptly.
“They got it reduced immediately, the doctors on the field and the trainers,” Kanell said. “That’s really a key. As you could see, they did superb care at the time of injury.”
Backing up a few moments, it helps to understand how the injury occurred, although the squeamish might wince just by reading Kaplan’s description.
“Basically what happened is the hip is a ball-in-socket joint, and the force, the way that he landed, his femur, thigh bone, was 90 degrees to the ground,” Kaplan said. “They landed on him and the force of the defensive player went through