Tua at 22 would be smart move

Quick, make your decision. It’s almost too late, considering the Tua Tagovailoa marketing tsunami just started this week. Here’s my verdict:

Tank-for-Tua, the season began.

Twenty-two-for-Tua, the season ends.

As in that’s where the Dolphins should draft the Alabama quarterback. As in their pick from the Pittsburgh trade, currently 22nd, mixes good risk and reward. As in anything significantly higher borders on franchise malpractice for a quarterback with a scrolling list of college injuries.

What’s the rush to decide, you ask? The draft isn’t until April?

Already, the Tua marketing campaign has begun. Already, Team Tua has begun rehabbing his brand as much as his hip.

He did an ESPN interview

Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa has started to rehab his brand along with his hip.

Wednesday about the pros and cons of staying at Alabama or declaring for the draft. He followed Thursday with a live-streamed presser where he tossed out the bait of how he’d go pro as a top-15 pick.

These interviews aren’t to change NFL personnel minds on his game or health. They’re to create an environment allowing teams to consider Tagovailoa as less risk and more reward.

By April’s draft, we might as well have a Tua Channel. It’ll be all Tua, all the time before that first pick — pressers, football updates, medical debates, ESPN draftniks versus “Grey’s Anatomy” actors.

If people pay $4.95 for talking penguins on Disney, why not for the daily rehab of Tua’s hip?

If one story will be the market manipulation around Tua Inc., the second will be the football story of him. Nothing will change there: He’s a great player and could be a great NFL quarterback.

But to see the concern the Dolphins and every team should have, follow the thinking around Lamar Jackson in the 2018 draft. Any team could have the league’s soon-to-be Most Valuable Player before Baltimore took him with pick No. 32. That includes Baltimore. It drafted a tight end Hayden Hurst at 25th, seven picks before Jackson.

Dolphins general manager Chris Grier — and 30 other GMs — didn’t draft Jackson for two prime reasons. First, the entire offense had to be rewired around him. That’s scary. Second, and more importantly, his electric running style was deemed a big health risk in the NFL.

Jackson’s style is risky too — spins, sprints, hits, the knees, ankles, shoulders and full-body ligaments that could go pop on any play. Who doesn’t see that as a gamble to hold up over a career?

Ask this: Should a Dolphins team that didn’t draft Jackson for fear of injury expend it’s expected top-10 pick on Tua, considering his history of injuries?

Here’s a litany of the anatomy around Tagovailoa the past two seasons at Alabama:

Sprained knee. Bruised quadriceps. Ankle injury (and minor surgery).

Ankle injury (and minor surgery).

Hip injury (major surgery).

Two years. Of college. Where Tagovailoa is protected by the best coaching and an often significant talent advantage.

What happens when he plays 16 NFL games just to reach the big games in January?

The Dolphins haven’t had much luck on quarterbacks with injuries either. They rolled the dice on Ryan Tannehill’s knee after his 2016 injury and lost him again in the 2017 training camp. Chad Pennington’s great 2008 reverted to his injury-prone career in 2009.

Then there’s the infamous Drew Brees decision. This is one they erred on the side of rational caution. Six of the best shoulder doctors in the country told the Dolphins that Brees’s shoulder had a 20% chance for full recovery. Would you bet on that? So coach Nick Saban played the odds and got played by them.

Now Saban, the Alabama coach, says former linebacker C.J. Mosely had the same injury in the 2013 college season and started a good NFL career as a firstround pick for Baltimore in the 2014 season.

Expect five months of such thoughts as Team Tua resets the narrative around him. The Dolphins can be seduced too. That mind, that arm, that good spirit — it all fits perfectly except for one pesky idea.

Dolphins owner Steve Ross has recycled an Einstein quote to support this year’s unusual plan: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.”

The draft definition of insanity is picking a player who keeps getting hurt and expecting him to stay healthy. Will Tua be healthier in the pros?

The reward is worth some risk. But make up your mind before the marketing campaign starts. The Dolphins currently have fourth, 22nd and 25th picks in the draft.

Twenty-two-for-Tua sounds just right.

VASHA HUNT/AP