GhostArmOfMarino
☠️ Banned ☠️
I like the thought you've put into this man. I'm not sure I'm fully on board with the base premise of Tua being Ross's guy and the other two being all for Herbert.
The reason I say this is because there seems to me a lot of revisionist theory going on here. If you cast your mind back to that draft, Burrow was the #1, because of the season he had with LSU but there was still some talk that Cincy were deliberating between him and Tua. Tua was the clear #2 though, especially after the video of him working out showed that he was make great strides in his recovery. Herbert was a distant #3, with some people having Jordan Love higher than him ! I remember back then that I was one of Herbert's biggest advocates, it was a lonely stance to take. People on here were incredulous at Tanenbaum when he was asked who was the best QB prospect in the draft Burrow or Tua and he said Herbert.
Now everyone is "oh how did we pass on him, he was clearly the best prospect, look at his arm" , yeah those people simply didn't say that at the time of the draft and I don't blame them for that because there were a LOT of question marks on Justin Herbert coming out, yes he had the big arm, but there wasn't much evidence of him being able to throw with touch. He was consistent in his inconsistency in college and he was prone to brain farts on a regular basis. He was always prototypical and I can't remember an arm as good as he showed on occasion at Oregon, but he was far from a slam dunk pick folks seem to want to make him out to be now.
If there was some disagreement, I think it was that Flo didn't want to take any QB that high, but he was of course still fairly new in the job and after posting 5 wins in year one, no matter how they were achieved in no position to over rule his GM and owner.
Think there is some truth in Tua not being Flo's guy, the benchings exposed that. I also think Flo's general disinterest in the offense is a factor here, he just expects them to go out and perform and if they are not he's coming down strong on them, hence the constant changes in the O coaching staff.
I don't agree Tua was the clear #2.
I wasn't a member on this site, but on the other it was probably about 60/40 in favor of Tua.
Also there were a lot of pre draft reports suggesting if he had fallen past SD he probably wouldn't be taken in the first. Obviously we will never know if that is true, but there were lots of reports of GMs being "meh" on him as well as reports we might take Herbert.