Dear Tua Tagovailoa: Please don't go ...
The following is an open letter to Alabama junior quarterback Tua Tagovailoa:
Dear Tua,
Please don’t go.
We know that is a selfish reaction, and the holiday season isn’t really a time to be selfish, but …
Please don’t go.
Don’t go grab the millions in the NFL. All that cash will still be there next year, after all. And your draft stock can only improve with 1 more mind-bending season operating the Alabama Crimson Tide offense as only you can.
Please don’t go.
Don’t take the money and run. That’s what the Cam Newtons of the world do. You’re not Cam Newton. You’re the anti-Cam Newton. Friends don’t let friends act like booger eaters, ya know?
Please don’t go.
We figure you set the table for a triumphant return Thursday, when you met with the statewide media for the first time since you dislocated your hip and broke a bone in your hip against Mississippi State last month. And while we saw the glimmer in your eye when you talked about wearing pajama pants to the proceedings while discussing what you called “the most important decision of your life.”
Please don’t go.
Tua … we can call you Tua, because we’re on that level now … the risk of falling to the end of the 1st round because of your injury means you should come back for your senior season and raise that draft stock to where it was before your injuries. And you know that, because you were asked Thursday that, if the NFL feedback you get is that you’re still in position to be a top-10 or top-15 draft pick at worst, would it be tough to pass up turning pro at that point?
“Yeah, I think that’d be tough to pass up,” you replied. “But I think there’s a lot more to it than that in some aspects. I don’t want to say too much because what me and my family talk about, we kind of want to be with me and my family.”
If you were going, you wouldn’t have had this talk. But instead, you were open and honest.
There, right there, is the rub. We know you’re full of Bama, Tua. We know your family is as well. Heck, they live here now. Your younger brother, Taulia, needs you to provide support and guidance through the ultra-competitive waters of Alabama football.
And you know you left something on the table this season — not the operating table, either. You fought and bled — literally — and went under the knife twice for the name of the Crimson Tide. We know what Alabama football means to you. That’s why you stayed away from practice the week of the Iron Bowl.
“It’s pretty hard, you know,” you said, “playing with these guys for 3 years and then you get hurt and you go to practice and the only thing you can do is watch and you really can’t too do much else.”
Please don’t go.
If it is just a money decision, Tua, it is increasingly clear you should stay and take your chances. Sliding down to, let’s say, No. 20 in the draft could cost maybe $25 million. And because of the nature of your injury, you can’t with any degree of confidence say that your hip will be 100 percent by the time Commissioner Roger Goodell enunciates the first 32 selections of the NFL Draft on April 23.
That means teams would be drafting on educated advice. On game tape. On a flyer. On assumed talent after a potentially catastrophic injury. Also, Tua, April 23 isn’t the real deadline. January 20 is — the date you and the rest of college football’s underclassmen need to declare their intentions.
“This isn’t something that I can rush,” you said Thursday of your desire to come back and play next season, whether that’s in the NFL or back at Alabama. “If I want to play to my full potential, I know I can’t just come back and play on it as if it were my ankle. I think a lot that has to go into my decision-making, too, as to whether I stay or leave.”
Not rushing your decision should also mean not rushing to the NFL. Yes, Tua, we understand your doctors are optimistic about a full recovery. Yes, Tua, we get that everyone with a medical degree who has evaluated you have told you that you will “be able to go out there and play football again at 100 percent.”
Not that we recommend listening to Auburn folk, as a matter of practicality. But there is sound counsel within the conversation you had with former Tigers star Bo Jackson, who visited with you last week at Jordan-Hare Stadium before the game we are all trying to forget.
“He gave me some insight on not trying to rush the process in trying to get back,” you said. “People say our situations are similar, and they are two totally different situations with our hips.”
Bo knows, a swooshed company once told us. And he knows what he is talking about with this one. Don’t rush the process. Enjoy your final season at Alabama. Lord knows you’ll be embraced in Tuscaloosa for one final go-round like no one ever has.
There are tons of miserable rich people. The ones who are loved are the truly rich ones, right?
You want to play next year, you reiterated Thursday afternoon. There’s nothing wrong with that. No one is suggesting you should sit out 2020 and just get healthy. But come back home to the world-class facilities and rehabilitation you have at your fingertips to get back to 100 percent, and then ride off into the 2020 sunset with more rings, maybe Mr. Stiff Arm, and a legacy fully intact.
“I’ve played hurt many times over the course of the 2 years that I’ve been the starter here. But I’d like to say this is just a totally different situation. This is a unique situation,” you told us all. “This isn’t something that I can rush. If I want to play to my full potential, I know that I can’t just come back and play on it as if it were my ankle. It’s just something that I need to take into consideration. Me wanting to play, I think a lot of that has to go into my decision-making, too, as to whether I stay or leave.”
So talk to your family, because we know we speak for your Crimson Tide family when we say this…
Please don’t go.
Yours in Crimson,
David
“All that cash will still be there next year, after all.”
Unless, of course, you suffer some kind of catastrophic, career-risking injury because Saban keeps you in a lopsided game to run up the score and impress the playoff committee.
But what are the odds of THAT happening?!?
This comment rates right up there on the terrible meter with this article. Go back to your hole.
I’ll go back to your mom’s hole, tough guy.
Such class.
#rekt
Why are you booing him? He’s right
Nothing terrible about the comment at all. Everything written was fact.
“Friends don’t let friends act like booger eaters, ya know?”
Grantland Rice, eat your heart out.
Do what you think is best for you, young man. Don’t listen to what others say whether it is that you should stay or that you should go. You are the one that will have to live with the decision that you make, not others.
Something tells me either way Bama will be fine. I’m not sure what coming back would do to help improve his draft status unless teams are just scared he won’t recover and he needs a year to show he has. My gut tells me someone will roll the dice and he’ll be gone.
Alternate title for this piece:
“Tua, please gamble the generational wealth you could receive as a 1st round NFL pick because odds are great you’ll come back 1000% healthy from insanely major surgery and win the Heisman in 2021 – there’s no possible way you might hurt your draft stock by being average – because Bama fans don’t really have that much confidence in Mac Jones.”
This article is absurd. Tua needs to go immediately to the NFL. The guy has nothing else to prove in college.
LOL. This is the dumbest thing I’ve yet read on this site, and that’s saying something considering Matt Hayes recently wrote that it should be surprising to everyone that Felipe Franks got a terrible scouting report from two different NFL scouts.
Shorter? He gone!
C’mon Tua, listen to this paunchy old man and risk your entire future so that David’s feeling don’t get hurt.
This is the gayest sports article I’ve ever read.
no question.
+1
I don’t know. I read an article about Megan Rapinoe on ESPN the other day.
WOW! How Sad!
There was another one about Tua couple weeks ago that was just as bad.
Repeatedly inserting “please don’t go” takes this article from dumb to weirdly offputting.
The only advice we, the CFB consuming public, should be offering Tua is to not gamble with his financial future over sentimental nonsense and simply to make whatever decision he feels is in his best interest. Period. Begging a young man to risk life and limb and money (a whole lot of money) for the glory of Bama is dumb. And the theortical marginal benefit of another year of putting up amazing game film is entirely outweighed by the risk.
Absolutely
What a sappy article.
being a fan of his rival, I probably shouldn’t comment, but I will. I think he has nothing more to prove and a lot to lose if he gets injured again. I think he needs to cash in while the iron is hot just like Stidham did last year.
Love the dude, wish the best for him, and if you told me two years ago he wouldn’t have a natty as a starter I’d have called you a liar. But go get paid. Don’t risk another wageless year making the NCAA money
Unless he plays basketball or FCS football next year, he won’t be making the NCAA any money.
I’m ready to never see Tua in red again.
The only people this article would speak to is the totally selfish part of the fanbase. Tua should go just to give all of them the finger.
Whatever happens Tua deserves at the very least, a really huge statue.
Yeah demand that QB who spends time in under the tent in literally every game of his career. He needs to go now to the draft and get what he can because more than likely next year he will suffer a massive reinjury of that hip and cost him his career entirely. Its time to move on from the Glass Prince.
Take the money and run.
Get out while the cash is great. You are not invincible and Nick has your clone signing up in December if not already on board. Your just another of our GLADIATORS trotting out risking life and limbs and your future life of tormented health issues to make sure on Saturdays we can cheer and have another one. Go bro while you can still pass the physical for your next life. Roll TIGERS !!!
I miss BamaTime’s perspective…did he write this letter for you, David?
Speaking of my little buddy, I haven’t seen him around much since the beat down in jhs … I guess he’s still doing community service for illegal editing of Wikipedia coaching biographies…lots and lots of TrunksnorterU articles with zero comments!
To all georgia fans, instead of being on a Bama blog….shouldn’t you be more concerned about the ass whuppin that awaits you tomorrow??? You guys are completely obsessed with Bama! Even on a 10-2 completely busted season for Bama you guys are still obsessed! I see why your program hasn’t won a championship in freakin 30 plus years and probably never will!!
Roll Tide!
1. No
2. Not completely
3. Yes
4. Never say never I never say
5. Woof woof woof
Tell us what it’s like to lose to LSU.
It sucks but it happens so rarely that it’s not much of a concern in the big picture. What did it feel like to lose to South Carolina? I can’t even imagine.
Anyway, why don’t you tell us tomorrow what it feels like to lose to LSU?
Looking forward to hearing your perspective.
UGARMYRet, you have already forgotten 36-16 last year? Is wins all you recognize?
PS…got any words of bama blog wisdom to say to the Auburn, LSU, Miss St, Florida and Carolina fans, BT?
They really are. Every single Alabama article’s comment section is inundated with bitter, passive aggressive UGA fans. UGA hands down has the most annoying fanbase in CFB, without question.
You wish. Remember when the entire comments section was clowning bama when they lost to the war tigers. That was because bama fans are the worst thing about SDS. Hell bamatime even went into hiding lol.
Is that why all the fans are clowning UGA since they got blasted by LSU?
Nobody went into hiding but the personal attacks gets old… We can talk trash about football all day..
Oh, are we still whining about the comment section? Commenting on a Bama article regarding Tua doesn’t mean people are obsessed. Though I have no doubt you’d like that to be true. If opinions from rival fan bases ruffles your feathers this much, I might suggest staying off the internet.
This aged well. Looks like he took the money and ran!