Miami Dolphins players and coach grilled over Tua Tagovailoa concussion

It was indeed a scary thing to witness when Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s head snapped against the turf on Thursday night, and was then strapped to a stretcher and transported to a hospital. Since then, a lot of questions have been asked about the NFL’s concussion protocol, the handling of Tua’s concussion the week before this incident, and why he was on the field to begin with.

Coach Mike McDaniel and the Dolphins players are being grilled about the situation. Though Tagovailoa was able to leave the hospital, he has been ruled out of this week’s game against the Jets.

“I don’t think, unless I need to adjust my summer schedule, I don’t think I should be involved in determining concussion symptoms outside of the obvious,” said McDaniel. “I think the biggest thing that I serve and one thing that we operate within this organization, is they know first and foremost that the players’ health and safety is above all else.”

The questions about the handling of the situation began because four days prior, Tagovailoa was hit hard during the game against the Bills, and several medical professionals and former NFL players have agreed that the injury very much looked like a concussion, not a back injury, which is what McDaniel said was the final call, before bringing Tua back onto the field to play. It is indeed a strong accusation to suggest that McDaniel or anyone else on the medical staff would allow Tua to play, knowing he had a concussion or even that he possibly did and lying about the fact. It is equally strange to think that medical professionals in this time period would not exercise extreme caution surrounding a possible concussion in the NFL.

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The NFL and NFLPA is continuing to investigate whether the current concussion protocols were properly followed in Tua’s situation, but one thing was agreed upon already. Though not yet formal, both sides agreed that a change in the concussion protocol was necessary: any player who shows “gross motor instability”, such as what Tua showed after being hit by a Bills linebacker, will be disqualified from playing the current game, regardless of the reason for the instability.

Pro Football Talk and NBC analyst Mike Florio reported this update on Sunday:

“As for the investigation, the NFL Players Association intends to ask Tua Tagovailoa this week a very simple question — if it was your back, if you told the doctors it was your back, what did they do to examine your back? And the broader point is this — if Tua had a back injury that caused him to wobble and nearly fall, shouldn’t he have been ruled out because of the back injury?

The league and the union really are working together here trying to find a way to make the concussion protocol less of a checklist for letting a guy back onto the field and more of a device for protecting players. The union wants the doctors to treat the players not like football players, but like patients, and to put their best interests as human beings above their desire to get back on the football field. That’s one of the reasons the union exercised its right to terminate the unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant who was involved in clearing Tua to play last weekend.”

Though Tagovailoa won’t be playing against the Jets, McDaniel said it would be premature to put him on Injured Reserve just yet. Doing so would guarantee he misses at least four games. He is currently in the concussion protocol and it’s unknown how long he will need to recover from this, as it varies from case to case.

“We’ve got a great training staff,” said Dolphins defensive tackle Christian Wilkins. “We’ve got great coaches, people who care about the players on this team, and our health and safety, our personal lives, all that stuff. This is our home away from home, so we’ve got a lot of people who care, and it’s bigger than just football around here and winning games.”