Which teams are most likely to ‘Tank for Tua’ in 2019?

Tank for Tua is a mantra NFL fans should get ready for in 2019, as several teams could find themselves lining up for the Crimson Tide quarterback in the 2020 NFL draft.

Suggesting that an NFL team — its coaches and players — will tank a regular season for the ability to draft a highly-rated quarterback prospect is, at best, a reach. It’s extremely hard, if not impossible, to convince those coaches and players to sacrifice a season’s worth of work (which includes risk of injury) simply to draft an unknown commodity at the most unpredictable position in the sport.

But that doesn’t mean there won’t be teams peaking at the 2020 NFL draft and the quarterbacks who are likely to declare.

Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa is the cream of that crop and a player who some have suggested could be worth giving a pass on this season for. There’s a long way to go before Tua’s final grade crystalizes, but all indications suggest his off-field approach to the game is as polished and dynamic as his on-field performance.

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But Tua’s talent, as fantastic as it may be, is only part of the equation. A majority of clubs will enter the 2019 season with a pretty solid quarterback situation. So there aren’t a lot of candidates who seem like a fit to burn it all down for Tua this fall.

The team most likely to do whatever’s necessary for Tua, however, is the Oakland Raiders. General manager Mike Mayock made it pretty clear during his first draft at the wheel that he values players from Alabama and Clemson, so it feels like a safe bet he’ll value the Crimson Tide quarterback quite a bit.

The problem for Oakland is they just aren’t bad enough. I don’t see them being the league’s biggest loser in 2019, so landing Tua will take some creative maneuvering next offseason. That said, if the Raiders are struggling at any point this year, they could slam the reboot button.

And what about the Miami Dolphins? Their investment in Josh Rosen certainly won’t prevent them from drafting Tua next April. If Rosen struggles to find success in the first month or so of the season, don’t be surprised to see Miami give their youngest players a bunch of reps to help expedite their learning curve (and add a few L’s to their record.)

Miami is in a complete rebuild as it is. Winning isn’t the ultimate goal for them in 2019. Building a winning culture is. And sometimes that’s born out of the kind adversity this season is likely to present.

The Cincinnati Bengals? Will they treat 2019 as a ‘pass’ and target Tua as the savior in the post-Andy Dalton era? I can’t imagine the franchise keeping Dalton around much longer, especially if he doesn’t lead the team on a deep playoff run this fall. And that’s highly unlikely. The Bengals are a weird franchise to figure out, from ownership to the front office. It wouldn’t come as any surprise if they sacrifice November and December for Tua in April.

Here’s a darkhorse: The Carolina Panthers. No, they won’t tank for Tua if Cam Newton is healthy. But if he isn’t? If he simply can’t play like we’re used to seeing? The Panthers could decide to put Cam on the shelf, lose a ton of games as a result, and end up with a similar situation to what the Colts had in 2012 when they selected Andrew Luck with the first overall pick after Peyton Manning missed the 2011 regular season. That would be fun.

At the end of the day, it’s highly unlikely any team will make an obvious attempt to lose this season. But, hey, ya never know.