When will the NFL change the concussion protocols?
Tua Tagovailoa, the Miami Dolphins star quarterback, is the latest player to go through the league’s protocols, but will these be updated?
We all sat in horror as we watched the head of the Miami Dolphins quarterback, Tua Tagovailoa, slam onto the turf in the game against the Cincinnati Bengals in week four of the NFL. He was then taken off the field of play and continues to go through the league’s concussion protocol. On Friday, his head coach, Mike McDaniel, stated that Tua is also seeing outside specialists and the star player would not be included for Sunday’s game at the New York Jets, and is not being added to the injured reserve list.
“He’s been diligently going through the process,” McDaniel said to the gathered media. “Right now he’s still in the protocol obviously.
“There’s several outside specialists that we’re also utilizing and we’ll just take it from there,” he continued. “But happy that we get to see him every day. It’s nice when I walk down the hallway and I hear, ‘What up, beast?’, which is, for whatever reason he calls me beast all the time. I don’t think I give off he beast vibe.”
NFL unclear over concussion changes
A player is ineligible to play for at least the next four games when added to the injured reserve list. Tagovailoa was cleared to return to the Buffalo game after being evaluated for a concussion by an unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant but his treatment has since put the NFL’s concussion protocol under scrutiny.
The NFL and the NFL Players Association have since said in a joint statement that modifications to the concussion protocol are needed to enhance player safety and health and the safety committee formally approved an update to the joint NFL-NFLPA concussion protocols, designed to protect players by closing the “loophole” on gross motor instability. Now we await the NFL signing off on the final language of the updated protocol.
“Our union has agreed to change the concussion protocols to protect players from returning to play in the case of any similar incident to what we saw on September 25,” read the statement from the NFLPA.
“We would like these changes to go into effect before this weekend’s game to immediately protect the players and hope the NFL accepts the change before then as well.”