The Ringer NFL Show - The Official Burrow vs. Tua Debate | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: April 20, 2020

Kevin Clark is joined by Danny Kelly to break down every aspect of the Joe Burrow vs. Tua Tagovailoa discussion, including the most NFL-translatable qualities each QB possesses, whether Tua would be drafted ahead of Burrow if he had never gotten hurt, Burrow’s legendary competitiveness, where Tua should land, and more. Host: Kevin Clark Guest: Danny Kelly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Once again, that's the ringer.com slash WCK. It's the ringer-on-o-fell show, part of the ringer podcast Network. I am Kevin Clark. Joining me on the other line, Danny, how are you, buddy? I'm doing pretty well, man. This draft is finally almost here, so I'm really excited about that. How are you doing? Finally almost here.

I'm okay. I'm okay. I am excited about the draft. I'm excited about the Michael Jordan doxy series. If you could get a 10-part series on anything in purple, what would it be? Oh, man. I mean, you know, as a Seahawks fan, probably the Pete Carroll, just the start of the Pete Carroll era, because I'm a total Seahawks nerd. The start of the Pete Keigh. Him signing Matt Flynn.

Yeah. The Matt Flynn, Russell Wilson, quarterback competition. That was an all-timer. That wasn't even the start of it. The start of it was the beast quake situation. Oh, yeah. I think Marshawn would be okay. I think 10 episodes for anything would be a little. I think unless you got full access to Belichick and Brady, I think 10 episodes will a little much for anything football. Marshawn, I don't know, Marciaun would be an epic one, just a 10-part, Mar-Shawn only thing. That's a lot of airtime to fill for a guy who doesn't like talking. That's true. That's true.

All right, we're doing a show today called Burrow or Tua. Danny, Burrow or Tua? Burrow. Okay, that's it. Thank you for listening. Okay. All right. So here's the deal on that.

So this is not in a vacuum. This is not with everyone in full health. This is a very different situation than maybe we thought a year ago with Tua. You know, when I talked to Kurt Warner at the Combine, he said if it wasn't for the hip injury for Tua that he thinks that this would be extremely close. I don't necessarily know that. We're going to get into that. But this is a world in which Joe Burrow, that the world on fire won a national championship, won a Heisman Trophy, looked as good as a college quarterback as ever looked in his last season on campus. and Tua was banged up and had a hip injury that many people at the time thought might threaten his entire rookie season.

That seems not be the case. But it's made the decision a lot different. So big picture, how do you view Tua as a prospect right now and how does that differ than a year ago this time? I think he's an excellent prospect. And I think, you know, you have to take into context the injury situation. it's not just his hip. He's also had the two tightrope injuries on his ankles. He's had hand issues.

He's had other things that have happened. I think that teams have to take that into account. If you go back a year ago from right now, there was all the tank for Tua stuff. He was the obvious number one choice for the next year. And that always seems to change a little bit. But clearly he's fallen off in terms of the prestige as a prospect. But I still think he's a really, really high-level prospect.

I still think he's worth the risk for teams that decide that they want to have him come in and assume that risk of him getting hurt, but I think what he can do for them is worth it to me. You know, there's been so many, it's been like a roller coaster, I think, you know, the last few months in terms of what people think of Tua because I remember, you know, coming out of the combine, a lot of indications were really strong. There was sort of these whispers and rumors that, oh, maybe like Tua could even be in play for number one. maybe maybe that's a thing. And then now,

now it's like, he's going to fall. He's going to drop like a rock in the draft. He's going to go up into the- anybody who spends enough time and the public eyes and draft prospect goes through every single scenario. It's very much die a hero

or live enough to become a villain. Like if you are a top quarterback, you will at one point be mocked at one and then at one point be mocked in the seventh round. Yeah. So I feel like the pendulum has swung, swung. swung so far back that he is now

sort of like this huge huge massive massive risk after I think people sort of started to feel like the risk it wasn't like that strong a risk his hip is by all accounts by all reports and everything that we've heard his hip is doing great he looks like he's doing great in the videos that he's released of his pro day

his unofficial pro day so I just feel like it's hard it's hard it's hard yeah this is a very bad time to have question marks. I know. I mean, obviously, yeah. With the pandemic going on, he can't do his normal battery of tests for every team.

He can't do medical rechecks like you normally would. It's just a little bit different. So a couple of things to unpack. Number one, this podcast in the last couple of weeks has strangely, because of the guests we've had on swung in a weird anti-Tua way, just because we've had, you know, like my Tannenbaum was on last week. and I think the world of my Tannenbaum as an analyst, and he's basically said that you, Herbert should be a top 10 pick and Tua shouldn't.

And that's, that's all the health. That's all health. And I think that, again, this is the weirdest time in the history of drafts to have question marks. I think that, you know, I saw the Bob McGinn thing. I don't know if you saw this, that there are some scouts questions about RPO's and, you know, look, Tua is one of the best RPO quarterbacks have ever seen. Okay. Right. And I think that in a weird way, NFL scouts see that as a negative, even though that's, you can do anything in football at every level now.

And there's no such thing as square peg and a round hole. And if you get Tua and you say he can't do anything but X, Y, and Z, well, then just do X, Y, and Z. That's what modern football is. It's not hard. What can a guy, what can a guy do, not what can't he do? and you build an offense around him. This is not hard. I mean, I've seen,

he drives me crazy when I still see, oh, so-and-so needs to be more pro-style or whatever. What is pro-style? Pro-style is what you can do in the pros and you can do whatever you want in the pros. That's football in 2020, and it's been that way for two, three, four, five years.

Yeah. I think that if you have questions about Tua, the player, that's a little bit different. I think this is all health, and that's why I'd be fairly scared to take them in the top five. If I'm at 10, 11, 12, I'm okay pulling the trigger right now. What say you on that?

Yeah, first of all, I totally agree with you in terms of, you know, it is a major question of health. And I think Roger Sherman wrote about this this week at the ringer.com. It's everybody seems to be talking about Tua as a football player, like as a football prospect now, which is just silly based on, you know, his career stats, everything that we saw from Tua in the last few years at Alabama. it just all feels like nitpicking. And the system quarterback thing is such a stupid talking point.

And this has been happening for years now. But Joe Burrow is just as much of it. Every quarterback is a system quarterback. Every quarterback is a system quarterback. That is football. Right. And Joe Burrow is in this, it's the exact same thing. Like what happened from him junior year to senior year,

he got into a system that absolutely fit his skill set perfectly. He blossomed. He absolutely exploded. that offense. And frankly, if he doesn't get into that kind of offense in the NFL, if they try to make him into a totally different style of quarterback in the pros, I think that is, you know, it's just stupid. I think you have to project him into the NFL doing what they did at LSU, which was, you know, a lot of spread out stuff. You know, they were doing like the five-man protection. So he was just able to kind of pick a part of defense, find the weak spot, get rid of it quickly,

all that stuff that made him, you know, that helped him blossom to the point which we saw last year. And I think you could make the exact same arguments for both of these guys. So I just think it's, this is the draft process and this is like the cycle of everything where you build one guy up or, you know, tear him down a little bit or whatever. It's just kind of like we need to figure out stuff to talk about. But I think the football aspect of it, there, there are similarities there between Borough and Tua where I think, you know, system fit is going to matter for both of those guys. And to answer your question about, you know, the health thing, I do think it does worry me a little bit. You know, obviously he's got the history of injuries. And there's a certain concern for sure that that will happen in the pros that will continue forward.

Like you've seen how, like Robert Griffin, his career kind of fell off a cliff because he got hurt. He wasn't super adept at sliding and, you know, avoiding big heads and things like that. That's something I wanted to address because Charles Robinson was on this podcast last week. that was part of the weird anti-tua, Tua similar to develop, even though I'm not personally anti-Tua. Charles Robinson said, there are scouts who concern, who have concerns about his ability to take a hit or to fall. That was the problem, is he couldn't fall effectively that he makes a meal out of that. And I think that that is, I think you can learn that.

I assume you can learn that. It's not a fatal fall, like some throwing problem or the inability to make reeds or whatever. I'd much rather that than my problem than, those things. And so I'm, I'm okay with that. I just think he can get into a system where he can learn that. I think that from a system standpoint, you know, listen, Joe Burrow's system was so good that the Carolina Panthers threw a bunch of money at a 30-year-old to make him an offensive Yeah. And that's, that's all you need to know about that. I think that both of these guys are just incredible, incredible talents. I would say, you know, I heard Daniel Jeremiah say this

a couple weeks ago and I've thought about it a lot is that with Burrow, maybe he doesn't have elite elite arm strength but vision is a superpower and I think that in modern football so much of this is everyone said everyone started using the term basketball on grass in the past decade

and that was sort of true but it really became true maybe three years ago I remember the Kyle Shanahan Falcons you know how often Matt Ryan was able to effectively use four wide out sometimes. I mean, his ability to read the entire field was really incredible under Kyle

Schenheim. And I remember talking to a lot of Falcons about that. And you think about, I'm not comparing the two by any means, but I'm just saying the ability to be able to read that many receivers that quickly and have that kind of vision is a cheat code in football. And if you can take Juroboro and take that vision and take the speed of which he diagnoses the field and build a system to to help that, you're going to have success quite early. You know, I think that, I don't know if you saw this, but Stephen Ruiz from USA Today had a super cut of his outside throws, Burroughs outside throws, and they're not great.

But I think that his ability to make easy throws is what's going to be able to separate him early. And I think that he will be able to do enough to become a really, really good NFL quarterback. I don't think, you know, there's there's a lot of comparisons that have been thrown around I think that from a competitive standpoint from a competitive standpoint I think people say he's

sort of top of the line like almost like a Tom Brady Drew Breeze type who just right who hates who hates to lose so much he's he's a little bit cocky he he he just I mean some of those some of the draft crews said that he's most competitive quarterback they've seen in a decade and and I don't know I think that stuff really counts but I think that I'm pegging him more to be sort of like a, you know, the 10th best quarterback in football in three years than the number one

best quarterback in football in three years. What say you on that? Yeah, I think that would be, that would be a bold statement to say that you think he's going to be the best quarterback in football in 10 years. I think, I think in how long? Three years. Oh, three years.

My bad, my bad. Yeah, 10 years is a long time. I think, I mean, who the hell knows? He can be the best quarterback in football in 10 years. Calvin Kelly could be the top quarterback in, 10 years. Yeah, my bad, my bad. Yeah, no, I think to your point, like, the confidence thing is what separates him. Like, there's, there is a reason that people have compared him to Tom Brady.

I think I saw even Greg Kosell from NFL films compared him to Tom Brady in his scouting report that came out the other day, today maybe. And so, like, there's a reason that they, that people have made that connection. It's not necessarily the physical thing, because Burroughs very athletic. but it's just his ability to deal with high pressure situations, be totally cool and calm under pressure. He was like that all season in the biggest moments, under the brightest lights,

all that. That was very, very impressive to me. The other thing that I think that that bro has that absolutely translates to the NFL is his accuracy. And like you mentioned, his arm strength isn't top tier. It's probably more on like the average bucket.

But he is pinpoint accurate to multiple layers. of the field. He can just put it exactly where he wants to put it. He puts it. One thing I was rewatching his tape the other day, and I just kept noticing he puts the ball exactly in the spot his receiver needs it in terms of where his defender is. So like if the defender is on the guy's outside hip, he'll throw it a little bit to the inside, let him go up and get it. He'll do a back shoulder throw if the guy is overplaying him a little bit, you know, to the like downfield or whatever. So I just really, really love that about him. He's so smart and so savvy about where he puts the football exactly.

It's ball placement. It's not just accuracy. And he has that consistently, consistently, consistently, consistently. And so I think that's something that will absolutely translate to the NFL and it's going to be huge for him in his career. And I think I would say the same thing about too, actually, you know, in terms of his accuracy, that is the thing that stands out the most to me, his processing, his accuracy, his ability to deliver the football exactly where his receiver needs it so he can turn up field.

You even see Tua kind of leading his receivers away from contact, things like that, little things that I think will absolutely translate to the next level. Yeah, I just think, you know, for both of these guys, what separates them is not just the mental aspects, which I think both of them have, but the accuracy is really what stands out. I think the competitive stories about Burrow really get me excited. And the reason that I think that he's going to have some instant success. You know, I think that Albert Burrits-Port's illustrated had a piece this week or last week. about the fact that he,

and it mentioned the fact that he against Miami last year was basically just talking trashed defensive lineman pregame and has a fire that is, I don't know, it's a little bit unique among NFL starting quarterbacks. There's not a lot of guys like that. He wanted to be on kickoff duty when he wasn't playing. Like, he's a multi-sport athlete.

He liked basketball. He loved baseball. He's, I think he wanted to play basketball at first until he realized how good he was of football. I think he's a, you know, I think Urban Myers is one of the biggest competitors he's ever seen. Like I kind of think that that, I think that matters more than we think.

You know, I remember talking to George Kittle in December and he made the point, he's a big visualization guy. And we were talking about it. And he was like, the thing you have to understand about football, he said, was that everybody is incredibly athletic. Everyone essentially is. You know, if you're talented enough to be in the NFL, you have unbelievable physical gifts. And that the difference between mediocrity and greatness is mental.

It's all mental. And I think that you see, I think Russell Wilson's a great example of this. It's someone who just has the mental part of the game absolutely down and is an incredible competitor and is able to overcome basically anything. I mean, for God's sake, Tom Cable was the offensive line coach and Russell Wilson played as well as anybody. in football. And I think that you look at the Bengals situation, they don't spend a lot of money on things. They don't have a huge front office.

They are not exactly a well-run organization. Marvin Lewis changed a little bit of that, but they are not exactly the Patriots. They're not exactly the Seahawks. And I think that his ability to compete and his ability to have the mental game down is going to help going in a situation like that when he has to turn it around.

I think if anybody can go in there and turn around Cincinnati Bengals right now, it's competitive crazy Joe Burrow. I can absolutely see that. In fact, when you're telling those stories, I haven't actually heard those stories, so that's awesome. When you were telling those stories,

I thought back, and I'm trying to remember exactly when this play happened. I believe it was against Auburn, and he got absolutely lit up on the sideline. And someone correct me if it wasn't Auburn, but he was scrambling around, trying to get a first down. He got absolutely lit up, like hard.

and then he just bounced right back up. Like he like, he is one of those things where it's such a cliche, but like he loves football. And you just like, you love to see that, you know, in any position,

but especially quarterback. Did we just get a love to see that in the wild? You love to see it, Kevin. I just love the crazy competitiveness. That's what I just love the crazy. I want, I want a player,

and this has been talked about a lot. I want a player where he's so competitive. you wonder if he's crazy. And that's the Michael Jordan thing. Yes. That's the Tom Brady thing. That, I mean, I've told the Brady stories a million times of what the guys who, you know, who work out with him the summer say.

That's the Breeze thing. I remember this thing a couple of years ago. I did a story about the backup quarterbacks with Breeze. And he used to play these like mini game. He still does. He's like challenge games with them. And even, not even just on the field, but he would get with his backups and they would, they would, you know, go paddle boarding and he would race them.

And he was just crazy. or, you know, hey, I bet you can hit those trash cans, you know, 60 yards away, whatever. And I remember asking, I don't remember which backup it was. It may have been Chase Daniel. And I said, what is the deal? Why is he just doing this constantly? And they were like, Drew Breeze knows he's not going to lose a quarterback competition to McCown or Chase Daniel or Ryan Griffin or any of these guys. So he needs something to compete or else he's just going to go crazy.

Like, he needs, if he's standing. he next to Chase Daniel, he can't play football against Chase Daniel because he would win. So what's he going to do? He'll just think of something. And those are the type of stories you're starting to hear about Joe Burrow, where he's just, I mean, everyone who's been around him says he's just one of the best competitors he's ever seen. And I think, I think, when you take the vision part of it, the accuracy part of it, his ability to make easy throws, his ability to read defenses, I think that that's going to help him in the NFL. Yeah. I absolutely, man. I love that.

stuff. I love that part of the game. And I was just thinking, like, we used to talk about this with Russell Wilson a little bit because he had, you know, he had one of the most, like, one of the worst moments in Super Bowl history throwing that picked in the end of Super Bowl,

whatever it was, 49. What about a 10 episode documentary on that? That would be excruciating. I'll pass on that one. Okay. But, so anyways, we talked about at the time, like, he was so upbeat about it afterwards. I think if you're,

you know, any professional sport, any professional athlete has to have the ability to forget and move on from mistakes. But I think the highest level quarterbacks, like the best quarterbacks in the NFL have this almost like

sociopathic lack of memory where you, you know what I mean? Like you have to be able to just have this unreal confidence in yourself. Like actually crazy, confidence in yourself. And I think like the best quarterbacks in NFL have that. Because otherwise you're just going to be second guessing yourself. You're going to think about that mistake you made. All this stuff. It is just like, I think that stuff is very fascinating,

like the sports psychology of it all. His dad told a story about when they were in high school. I'm sorry, it was on the Daniel Jeremiah podcast, which is a really good, they did a 360 on him, and Bucky Brooks, and they had his dad on. And they asked him about it. And he said that when he was in high school that they had suffered some loss in a championship game and his teammate, Burroughs teammate, threw the second place trophy of the garbage cam. And Mr. Burroughs said, Mr. Burroughs said, oh, I'm glad Joe didn't do that. And then he went up to Joe's room later and Joe had dismantled the second place trophy. He just ripped it apart. So it was even more destructive on the second place trophy. Like the first or last. Exactly. And I think that,

Leonard Furnett, even though, you know, look, Leonard Furnett is not a top of the NFL player, but he took a lot of his awards that he didn't care much about and he gave them away and they became high school weights, if you remember that story. But I think that I think that the competitiveness is actually, you know, it's after a lot of physical traits and it's after a lot of mental traits, but that can be the difference. And I think that, I think Joe Borough is really good and I think the Tua is really good. Where do you want Tua to go?

That's a good question. I really, this is the chalk answers, but either Miami or the Chargers. I lean chargers just because I think that their support system is slightly more refined right now, especially on offense with Keenan Allen. Hunter Henry.

Their offensive line is a big question mark, but so is the same deal in Miami. I mean, I like a few of the receivers in Miami too. But I just think overall, too, has a better chance of early production in the Chargers offense. So I kind of lean them. And I mean, you know, do I think he's going to fall? My gut says no. Maybe that's just me being like, that's like hopeful thinking for me or whatever, wishful thinking because I'm a big fan of his and I think he's really good. But I'm not the one that has to make that gamble. I'm not the one that has to stake sort of my career on him

staying healthy, or not my career, but my job on him staying healthy if I'm a GM. However, I feel that I would be more comfortable taking Tua, even though he has that injury risk, than a guy like Burrow, or sorry, than a guy like Herbert, just because he is, to me, he's clearly the superior prospect. And Josh Norris from Roto World tweeted this out the other day. I was like, I couldn't, like, agree with it more emphatically. It's just like, it's riskier to take a worst player. Like, bottom line, like, Tua is a better player. And you can worry about the injury stuff.

I get that for sure. But if my job is on the line, I'm taking the far superior player. And that's who I think, that's what I think Tua is. So I'm hoping that he doesn't fall on draft night. I do acknowledge that it is a potential thing that could happen, though. Who's going to get Burrow after the first seven teams have Wi-Fi issues, and don't get a pick in? the first 22 teams and then the Patriots get him.

The report today was that the first pick in the mock draft did not go well, which I believe was the Cowboys pick. And because they obviously did it a little bit different. It wasn't the Bengals pick. But I'm expecting some extremely entertaining work from home issues. I know. I cannot wait. I think this is going to be the most entertaining draft.

Not to mention, like, I'm just fascinated to see how networks cover everything and how they make it all work with everybody, you know, doing Zoom and stuff. But, you know, past that, like, how are the teams going to make this all work? It's going to be very fascinating. Anything else that we need to talk about with Burrough and Tua? I just, like, want to re-emphasize how much I like Tua as a player, I feel like. Yep. This is a pro Tua podcast that got a little bit anti-Tua the last couple weeks.

Yeah. I just think, man, I just, first of all, it's just, just really fun to watch him play. Like the way he's so fast as a processor, he just snaps the ball off. Like we mentioned the RPO plays. He's good on play action. Extreme accuracy to all levels of the field. Everything that kind of like has happened over the last few months with the injury.

And I think that's all legitimate. But like when we talk about his abilities as a player, I think it's just nitpicking at this point. Picking nits, like the rewatchables. That's us. rewatching the 29th and football season. All right. We're going to have draft content all week,

both on the site and on video and on the podcast. We're going to be back again in a couple of days. Danny, what do you got story-wise this week? I got a mock draft coming up on Wednesday. So that's the, I guess, my final one, my best guess is going to happen. No internet problems here, baby.

So yeah, we're doing that. And then the big board gets a, final update to 100 players, so I'm up to my top 100 and lock that in for, I believe, on Wednesday. So, yeah, then we'll be locked and loaded for the draft and all the shenanigans that are happening. We're going to be potting again. Yeah, I think we're, I think the plan is to talk about the mock draft. So, yeah, that'll be fun.

All right. Let's ride. Danny Kelly, thank you for joining us. Thank you, man.