In the immediate aftermath of Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s latest concussion, coach Mike McDaniel did the responsible thing — he steered the conversation away from timelines. Now that Tua is getting closer to his eligibility to return from injured reserve, and given the team’s struggles without him, the timeline is coming into focus with a clear sense of urgency.
The urgency has been punctuated by breathless reporting regarding Tua’s lack of symptoms and his intention to return to action in Week 8, the first game to be played after he misses the minimum of four games.
Notions of patience and prudence have taken a back seat to the fact that the season has gone sideways for the Dolphins. They need Tua back. Tua wants to come back. And if/when he fully clears the concussion protocol, nothing prevents him from coming back.
Other than the philosophical question of whether it makes sense for him to risk yet another concussion.
That’s the problem with the entire situation. Tua gets cleared to return from his most recent concussion and then he’s constantly at risk of his next one. Throw in the fact that he’s the perceived savior of the season, and he’ll potentially play with the same sense of caution to the wind that caused him to collide with Bills safety Damar Hamlin in Week 2, causing the latest brain injury.
In the NFL, with an endless supply of bright, shiny objects in the form of another game after another game after another game, it’s easy to forget how certain developments felt as they were unfolding. With Tua’s latest concussion, it felt like a big deal. It felt like something that would prompt a big-picture decision, likely in the offseason, as to whether he should call it a career.
Instead, only two weeks and six days later, the standard, box-checking presumption has returned that: (1) the player will be cleared to play; and (2) the player will play. Even if playing means setting himself up for his fourth official NFL brain injury. (As anyone with a brain knows, however, his “back injury” from September 2022 against the Bills already puts him at four NFL concussions.)
It’s his life. It’s his right. As we said when the concussion issue first emerged more than a decade ago, Americans routinely take far greater risks for far less money. If Tua wants to keep assuming the risk of further concussions, and if he’s medically cleared to do so, he’s entitled to do just that.
Still, it can’t be easy to make the best possible decisions regarding his long-term health if he’s standing on the sidelines and witnessing the sputtering of the offense and the slipping away of the season. The game is a magnet that will pull him back to it, consequences be damned.
All we can do is wait and watch. Still, those with platforms in the media can at least try to balance the idea that he’s symptom-free with the reality that he’ll be stepping right back into an environment where yet another brain injury is one of the most basic outcomes to be anticipated, sooner or later or sooner and later and then over and over again until he’s never cleared to return or he retires.
Again, we’re not saying he should retire. That’s not our business. We’re simply pointing out that this wasn’t some freak injury (like the one that nearly killed Damar Hamlin). Tua’s concussions are the direct results of the most basic realities of playing football. Even if he makes it a full season without another one, the next one will always be one play away.
