The Dolphins’ story is essentially this: Tagovailoa was hurt in a manner that included all the signs of a concussion, but was something else entirely
When the Thursday Night Football game went to halftime, the broadcast crew naturally offered their thoughts on the grim injury suffered by Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who had been slammed to the ground in Cincinnati, suffered an evident brain injury, and was carted off the field while strapped to a stretcher.
Tony Gonzalez, the Hall of Fame tight end, said he had never seen anything like it, with Tagovailoa’s hands and fingers splayed awkwardly in a manner consistent with brain trauma. Gonzalez played 17 seasons in the NFL. Ryan Fitzpatrick, who played last year with Tagovailoa, said he was having a hard time dealing with what he had seen. Richard Sherman, the long-time defensive back, offered prayers and sympathy.
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None of them questioned the fact that Tagovailoa was out there at all.
This was immediately seized upon by many observers, who wondered if the TNF gang was being deliberately obtuse by not pointing out the obvious backstory. Tagovailoa had been slammed to the turf in Miami on Sunday, with the back of his helmet bouncing off the ground, and then almost collapsed when he got up and tried to walk it off. His linemen literally grabbed him to keep him from falling over. He had somehow been cleared to return to play after halftime of that game against Buffalo, and the Dolphins had said he had hadn’t suffered a head injury but a back injury. The NFL Players’ Association doubted this explanation and launched an investigation.
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It’s against that backdrop that Tagovailoa ended up crumpled up on the ground in Cincinnati, his health clearly in peril. The decision to put him back out on the field four days after what happened in Miami looked not just unwise, but straight-up negligent. How could the Dolphins have allowed this to happen? How could the league? Why were the television analysts, part of Amazon’s billion-dollar purchase of the TNF slate, not asking these questions?
One possibility for that last question: Because as former players, they know that players are always going to try to play.
Tagovailoa came into this season with his job on the line. Despite being the fifth-overall draft pick just two years ago, he has struggled to impress and the Dolphins had shopped for a replacement. The team’s owner, Stephen Ross, is currently suspended in part for trying to recruit Tom Brady last year. With an upgraded offence around him, this was the year in which Tagovailoa had to prove himself. With the Dolphins off to a hot start, playing on national television, he would naturally have wanted to keep playing.
Which is where, for all of the changes the National Football League has made over the past decade to deal with the risks of concussion, with codified protocols and the presence of an “unaffiliated” neurologist on site at each game, the giant, glaring loophole is that players don’t want to do anything to imperil a career that can disappear in an instant, and their teams are usually willing to let them make their own choices about their health. In Tagovailoa’s case, because the obvious effects of his injury on Sunday — the part where he could barely stand — were attributed to a back problem, not a head problem, he was free to skirt concussion protocols and get ready to play on Thursday.
Some years back I wrote a column that was part of a Postmedia series on sports and concussions. It began with an anecdote in which NFL quarterback Case Keenum was thrown to the ground, and plainly wobbled when a lineman hauled him back up like a sack of potatoes. Keenum didn’t even miss a play. Even though the quarterback is the most-watched player on the field, somehow everyone involved didn’t manage to even get Keenum checked out. The protocols are only as good as the people involved in enforcing them. That was seven years ago, and it is alarming how little has changed.
Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said in his post-game press conference that he was relieved that reports from the Cincinnati hospital were that Tagovailoa had full movement in his extremities and no sign of a spinal or neck injury, which was good news. But he also expressed relief that his quarterback “doesn’t have anything more serious than a concussion,” which is a strange bit of phrasing. That’s a brain injury, and the consequences could be significant, especially if a similar injury went undiagnosed on Sunday. McDaniel insists that the events of Sunday had no bearing on Thursday — that it was a back injury followed by an unrelated head injury. He also insisted that Tagovailoa would have been placed in the concussion protocol had they believed he suffered a head injury against Buffalo. The Dolphins’ story is essentially this: Tagovailoa was hurt in a manner that included all the signs of a concussion, but was something else entirely. Days later, after a similar tackle, he was in fact concussed. If nothing else, it’s quite a coincidence.
In that piece from 2015, when Tagovailoa was still a teenager, I wrote that better understanding of the long-term risks of head trauma might bring change: “The NFL quarterback that grows up understanding the seriousness of concussions might even know to take himself out of the game.”
It would seem we are not there yet.
Postmedia News
sstinson@postmedia.com