I completely disagree with you that Tua has below average pocket awareness. For a 23 year old, I think he has highly advanced pocket awareness. The problem is that our offensive line rarely creates anything resembling a pocket.I don't get all the love for Tua. He's unathletic (by today's standards), immobile, slow-footed, has a weaker-than-average arm, has below average pocket awareness, has only showed one game that he's capable (cardinals game he was AWESOME).. please convince me lol but i dont see it at all
As to your other points, at least in my opinion, being relatively unathletic and having below average arm strength isn’t a huge detriment to being an excellent quarterback. Tom Brady is unathletic with below average arm strength. So is Drew Brees. So is Matt Ryan. So were Philip Rivers and Andrew Luck. And though Peyton Manning started with elite arm strength, by the time he was dominating the league in Denver, he could barely get it 50 yards in the air.
Arm strength is nice, don’t get me wrong. So is athleticism. But I’ll take a smart, instinctive, accurate passer over a highly athletic one with a cannon for an arm any day. I’m not saying Tua is going to be an elite QB. We don’t know yet. But physical tools aren’t really that big of a deal at that position. Tua has the accuracy. He has the leadership qualities. He has pocket awareness, and he’s instinctual. The questions are going to be whether he can (a) read defenses well enough to consistently and quickly make the right decision with the ball, and (b) stay in one piece long enough to learn how to do that.
I don’t know what the answers will be. But either way, I don’t see Tua’s career rising or falling with his arm strength. And unless our offensive line can keep him upright and our offensive coordinator can design plays that get guys open, Tua really doesn’t have a chance.