Tua Tagovailoa to Chiefs is internet’s worst trade idea

Some ideas that people throw out there on the internet just aren’t worth commenting on. We’re honestly not quite sure if this is in that territory or not, but given that it looks like Chad Forbes posted this with all manner of sincerity, we thought we’d take on the idea.

If you missed the hilarity on Twitter recently, Forbes posted the idea that the Chiefs could be a sleeper team to trade for Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. The full post went a little something like this.

There is a slight chance that the poster was inebriated or even just tired here given the wrong spelling of the word “since” and the weird capitalization of Partner, unless he was intending to greet the team that traded for Tua, a la a random cowboy in Red Dead Redemption. And if that’s the case, then the trade idea came from the same poor decision-making place and should be overlooked.

But just in case Forbes was crystal clear and ready to post some sort of insider-ish idea that the Chiefs would be red hot to trade for Tua and surprise us all, let’s take a closer look at the insanity at work here.

First, let’s take Forbes seriously and try to come up with why he thinks this could be a good idea. First, here’s what’s working for a Tua to Chiefs trade.

1. Brett Veach has a proven track record of trading for former high draft picks when their stocks are at their lowest. This has been true since he was first installed as general manager, and we’ve seen it multiple times with Reggie Ragland or Cameron Erving or Mike Hughes.
2. The Chiefs are in their final season with Chad Henne as backup quarterback with only Shane Buechele on the roster after him (and he’s on the practice squad). Perhaps the Chiefs want to give Tua a place to rehabilitate his draft stock and give themselves some security in the process.
3. Maybe Veach has nightmares about something ever happening to Mahomes and he’s insistent that QB is the most important position by so much that he’s ready to spend more at the position that’s already the best in the NFL.

Even with that in mind, Tua to the Chiefs is just a laughable idea and we’re not sure why Forbes would believe that the Chiefs would be a sleeper team. Do we really need to list the reasons? Just to cover our tracks here.

1. The Chiefs have major roster concerns on every level of the defense, and if there’s going to be any pre-deadline trades in the works, it’s likely going to bring some edge rushing help or depth at safety and/or linebacker.
2. Tua Tagovailoa hasn’t lived up to the draft billing he was given as a former No. 2 overall pick, but no one is ready to relegate him to long-term backup for Patrick Mahomes just yet. There are QB needy teams out there that would enjoy the chance to try Tua in their system.
3. Even if the Chiefs had no other draft needs and somehow loved Tua even with Mahomes in place, what sort of package does he picture the Chiefs putting together? They have little-to-no cap room and need to retain as many future draft assets as they can because the core of this team is going to get expensive over time—even if they figure a way out of a few deals like Frank Clark, Anthony Hitchens, Laurent Duvernay-Tardif and more.

In short, there’s really no scenario in which Tua to the Chiefs makes any real sense at all—for the player as a preferred destination or for the team as the sort of asset worthy of such an investment. It’s just a horrible move all the way around, so to include the Chiefs is really to include the one team in the NFL (maybe other than the Packers) who would be the single worst franchise to mention in the Tua trade sweepstakes.

The only asterisk here is that maybe Forbes was trying to include a brilliant line in his tweet and things got muddled. Maybe he just meant to say “Don’t sleep on the Chiefs” as a standalone statement. Maybe it was a voice-to-text thing that got tagged onto the end of an already drunken tweet. If so, we take all of this back because, in that case, we could not agree more.

Don’t sleep on the Chiefs. Unless, that is, you’re talking about a trade for Tua Tagovailoa.