Remember Brees? Hey, Remember Culpepper, Too!

M.J.

5 years ago

The cries of “Remember Brees” grow louder and louder

An ever-increasing number of journalists in the blog-o-sphere are warning the Miami Dolphins to ‘remember the Drew Brees debacle’ this offseason. You bet the Dolphins need to consider how they handled Brees to avoid making the same mistake again with Tua. But, if the Dolphins brain trust really wants to make the right decision they must also remember Daunte Culpepper too!

The ‘legend’ of Miami not signing Brees has grown over the years to epic proportions. In contrast, the failure of signing Culpepper has taken a back seat. This shouldn’t be the case because both poor medical evaluations and the decisions that followed are inextricably linked together. The mistakes and lessons learned must be used in tandem.

And, if you’re splitting hairs, because they are mobile QBs recovering from a lower-body injury the mistake of signing Culpepper hits a bit closer to home when it comes to Tua.

Tua was given a “good” bill of health

Ian Rapoport reported that the results of the CT scan that Tua Tagovailoa underwent were “as positive as possible”. This doesn’t sound like a definitive medical claim or a sure bet with the best sports betting software sites.

Jimmy Bouron wrote about the complexity of this injury in November:

“When the hip dislocates and it fractures off a piece of the cup, part of the hip joint it also disrupts the blood supply to the end of the femur, which is the lower leg part of the hip joint. This specific scenario is called avascular necrosis or AVN and this was the reason Bo could no longer play. The good news is many believe that Tua’s injury was addressed immediately. This means it is less likely that there was any disruption in the blood supply to the femur. However, AVN can’t be immediately diagnosed because it takes 3 to 6 months to develop. So there’s no guarantee Tua doesn’t have AVN!“

Who knows? Not even the doctors really do… and that’s the problem.

While Tua had the best medical treatment on the planet, there is still a chance AVN can pop up post-draft. Also no matter how good doctors are, you are never the same after surgery. Add to this all Tua’s other surgeries and the increased odds of re-injuring them. And finally, Tua is a football player and like all football players, new injuries are coming to join the old ones. All these factors combined create a massive risk in the huge investment it will take to get Tua.

Miami must use their 5th Overall pick to get Tua, so they are trading their best chip this year for him. If Tua flops due to poor play or re-injury, they will have all but wasted the Season 2019.

After two decades of failure, can Miami afford the extra risk?

The clearest lesson learned from the Saban Era is…

The greatest lesson learned from the Bress and Culpepper mishap is medical evaluations are a gamble. Nick Saban was told to go with Culpepper over Brees. The Miami Dolphins medical team was wrong on both accounts. Players with an injury history lower their odds of success… and the odds that a player will succeed in the NFL is low to start with. While some can point to outliers like Frank Gore, NFL history is bursting at the seams with players not so fortunate. No matter how you slice it, the safer bet is rolling the dice on players without a history of serious injuries.

Without question, missing on Brees sucked. Having Brees slip through the Dolphins fingers was an epic miss. In the end, though, nothing was truly lost but the opportunity. This is why the Culpepper decision was worse. Miami built a whole season on Culpepper and the regime crumbled when he broke down. They missed on the player and lost a ton too. Miami could have lived to fight another day and found their QB down the line. Instead, they sacrificed critical assets, a season, and the regime adding insult to injury and compounding the bad decision.

The two sides of Phins ‘missing’ on Tua

If Miami doesn’t pick Tua and it’s Brees 2.0 at least Miami will have the assets to make amends by finding another quality quarterback. Not the best option, but a workable one. In contrast, should Miami draft Tua, or even worse trade up for him, and he flops, they’ll be hard-pressed to recover.

I’m not saying don’t draft Tua or forget about the Brees fiasco. Rather, let’s keep the Culpepper mishap on equal footing in the evaluation. Chris Grier can be wrong and recover if he doesn’t draft Tua. But if Grier does draft Tua it’s greatness or bust for this regime. Go Phins!!!

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The cries of “Remember Brees” grow louder and louder

Tua was given a “good” bill of health

Who knows? Not even the doctors really do… and that’s the problem.

The clearest lesson learned from the Saban Era is…

The two sides of Phins ‘missing’ on Tua

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