Tua Tagovailoa’s career nearly ended on the football field, and the NFL completely turned a blind eye. On September 29, a Thursday night game against the Cincinnati Bengals, Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was sacked and thrown forcefully to the ground. Tagovailoa stayed down for nearly three minutes in a fencing position before being carted off of the field.
The week before, Tagovailoa had taken a late hit from Bills linebacker Matt Milano which led to him appearing concussed. He was able to get back up, but then nearly collapsed after losing his balance soon after. Tagovailoa was removed from the game and backup quarterback Teddy Bridgewater played the rest of the first half.
In a surprise to many, Tagovailoa played the second half of the game against Buffalo. Tua seemed fine, but this prompted a lot of questions. Why was Tua playing? It seemed like he could barely walk, let alone command an offense with the hit he took. Considering the NFL has already been under scrutiny, one would think that they would take such a scary incident more seriously instead of letting the Dolphins rush out their franchise player. Unfortunately, nobody in the Dolphins organization did the right thing and had Tagovailoa sit out the rest of the game.
The doctors involved came to the rather quick conclusion that the issue the former Heisman Trophy finalist was dealing with was a back injury. However, the way he stumbled after he took his hit against the Bills was clearly a neurological issue to those who were watching. Those concerns made by the football world were all but confirmed the following Thursday when Tagovailoa had to be carried off the field on a stretcher after the scary moment the football world witnessed. It was shown right then and there that Tua should not have been anywhere near the football field that night.
Throughout this saga, the conversation of concussions in the NFL has been revived as a large-scale issue. What happened during the Dolphins’ Thursday night game shows that despite the recent lack of activity on this topic, concussions are still a real issue for the NFL and one of the most prominent dangers of playing football, and the NFL still does not entirely take the issue seriously.
Many experts expressed their concerns about how the Dolphins handled Tua’s injury. Neuroscientist and former WWE wrestler Dr. Chris Nowinski sounded the alarm on Twitter about Tagovailoa’s injury several times throughout the week leading up to the game against the Bengals.
“If Tua takes the field tonight, it’s a massive step back for #concussion care in the NFL,” he said in a tweet. “If he has a 2nd concussion that destroys his season or career, everyone involved will be sued & should lose their jobs, coaches included. We all saw it, even they must know this isn’t right.”
Dr. Nowinski was one of the first prominent figures to say that he did not believe the injury of the former first-round pick was a back injury.
“Watch the vid,” he tweeted, “Tua shakes his head multiple times to ‘clear the cobwebs’, which is a specific sign of vision impairment after #concussion. He also wobbles getting up before falling. His return is a fail @NFL.”
Tagovailoa may have cleared NFL concussion protocols, but they have always been sketchy, and this instance once again proves that protocols should be reviewed. It never takes three days to recover from such a blow. He simply should not have been playing.
The final straw for many fans was when Tagovailoa was laid out after the sack in a fencing position. It disturbed many watching.
“It was awful. Made my stomach churn,” a lifelong Dolphins fan told me, “I had to turn off the game I was [so] disturbed by the hit. The guy slammed Tua to the ground. There was no need for that.”
He stated that he lost all enthusiasm for the game after seeing Tagovailoa carted off.
According to an Associated Press report, the NFL Player’s Association (NFLPA) later fired the independent neurotrauma specialist. This all but confirmed that Tua’s injury was not a back issue, but a serious neurological issue.
A few days later, Dr. Bennet Omalu, who inspired the movie “Concussion” starring Will Smith, told TMZ Sports that Tua should stop playing football altogether and retire.
“If you love your life, if you love your family, you love your kids…it’s time to gallantly walk away,” Omalu said in an interview with TMZ, “Go find something else to do.”
The NFL and NFLPA both released statements, along with the opening of a joint investigation into the handling of Tua’s severe situation. This also received a lot of skepticism, especially from former NFL players.
When the NFLPA said that player safety is important to them, Former Charger quarterback Ryan Leaf tweeted in response, “THE F— IT IS!! Stop pushing out your and the NFL’s propaganda. You are just as complicit in what happened. How do you look at yourselves in the mirror.”
Tagovailoa’s freak injury once again raises the predicament of concussions in the NFL, as well as Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), which has been found in many former NFL players.
Joe Burrow, the Cincinnati Bengals quarterback, also weighed in on concussions and other injuries in the NFL.
“I’ve been hit and forgot the rest of the game,” Burrow said on the Colin Cowherd Podcast, “That has happened a couple of times.” In the same podcast, he said sometimes forgot the entire second half of the game.
Burrow’s remarks are shocking, but not surprising, considering also the long-lasting effects of big hits.
One prime example of this is former all-pro wide receiver, Antonio Brown. Brown is mostly known nowadays for his many off-the-field antics. However, after taking a massive blow to the head by Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict in a 2015 Divisional Round game, he simply has not been the same.
It is believed that Brown got permanent brain damage from Burfict’s hit, which may have driven many of his impulsive and outlandish actions on and off the field. Even his interviews were drastically different compared to before the hit in the way he spoke, the way he delivered himself, and his overall demeanor. And it’s a shame because he was easily on a trajectory for the Hall of Fame.
As for Tagovailoa, this is already a make-or-break year for him as the potential franchise quarterback for Miami, and the lack of awareness by coach Mike McDaniel, general manager Chris Greer, owner Stephen Ross, and the organization, for his health and well-being might come back to haunt him and the Dolphins.
The hit Tua endured could possibly result in permanent neurological damage, which would affect not only the rest of his career, but the rest of his life. These types of injuries are career-threatening, and the NFL needs to take action quickly before they start losing more fans.
