The Facts: Tagovailoa has been training jiu-jitsu this offseason to learn to fall more safely and avoid his head hitting the ground, which caused at least two concussions last season. And part of that training has entailed watching film not with a football coach, but with a jiu-jitsu coach. Tagovailoa said he and his jiu-jitsu trainer have been rewatching the film of all the times he was knocked to the ground last season with an eye toward improving the way he falls and keeping his head from hitting the turf.
Diehards Line:“It wasn’t tough to watch,” Tagovailoa said, via ESPN. “I want to get better at everything that I can do to help the team win games, and I know the biggest one is my health, staying out on the field. And so looking at the film, I was able to watch that with my jiu-jitsu coach, and we were able to kind of relive the scenario in how I got tackled, how I fell. And it wasn’t just one particular game. It was multiple ways that I got taken down and how I could have prevented that. ...” If Tagovailoa can prevent further head injuries, he has the potential to become one of the NFL’s elite quarterbacks. And if it works, jiu-jitsu training may become mandatory for quarterbacks around the NFL.