Tua Tagovailoa has a lengthy injury history.
Anyone who watched the lefty quarterback play at Alabama or with the Miami Dolphins knows that it hasn’t always been easy for him to stay off the field.
Tagovailoa is now at risk of an injury ruining his start with the Atlanta Falcons.
He went down during Thursday’s practice and didn’t participate the rest of the way. Cooper Rush got all the reps with the starters the remainder of the day.
And whether this is good news or bad news is unclear, but this appears to be a new injury for Tagovailoa than what he has dealt with before.
Tua Tagovailoa Injury Update
The news emerged in bursts.
First, there were reports that Tagovailoa had briefly gone down at practice with what appeared to be a back injury.
Then, there was a video that showed how quickly whatever the ailment was seemed to hit Tagovailoa.
But afterwards, the Falcons made it clear that Tagovailoa had hurt his oblique, not his back. He was officially listed as a limited participant in practice — in this case, seemingly because he started the day but didn’t finish it.
What’s The Oblique?
The oblique is essentially your side muscle.
It’s along the sides of your abdomen, with there being oblique muscles on both sides of your body.
Because throwing a football requires twisting and some torque, an injury to the oblique can be tough — it’s a somewhat common baseball injury and because both the hitting and throwing motions have a lot of turning, it can limit players for a while.
Tua Tagovailoa Injury History
A look through Tagovailoa’s recorded injury history doesn’t show previous issues with his oblique.
Earlier this summer, he dealt with back spasms, and that was one of the first things that came to mind when Tagovailoa got hurt on Thursday. Maybe there’s a connection, but it doesn’t appear to be the actual same injury.
Tagovailoa famously injured his hip seriously while he was at Alabama, then dealt with lesser hip ailments midway through his Dolphins tenur.e
He has also had multiple concussions in the NFL as sources of major concerns.
Tagovailoa has fractured a couple of fingers and also had injuries to his shoulder, his ribs and his quad.
Nothing in his past shows an oblique problem, though, so if that’s really what this is, it’s a new one.
It’s brutal timing for the Falcons, who had already decided Michael Penix wasn’t quite recovered from his knee injury to be ready to play in Week 1.
That left Tua, with Rush as his backup. And Tagovailoa could still rally, have a decent practice on Friday and play on Sunday in Pittsburgh. But the Falcons certainly weren’t planning on being without both of their top-two QBs for the season opener against the Steelers.
Tua Tagovailoa’s Injury History Hasn’t Included This Before