The Tua Tagovailoa concussion last night was really, *REALLY* bad

Football
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With all the protocols the NFL has instituted around concussions, it’s incomprehensible how the Dolphins let him play last night, after being woozy and getting rocked just last Sunday, and (ostensibly) getting cleared by team physicians in that game.

The blow last night wasn’t that bad, at all. Tua was a concussion waiting to happen. He might have got one if he was in a car that drove over a curb.

This is actually worse than the Robert Woods concussion from Brian Blechen up here, because the protocols had not yet been formed then, and Woods was never on the ground with his hands doing weird things.

Big step backward for player safety last night, and people should lose their jobs on this one. Indefensible. Big stain on the Dolphins, and the NFL. Change the rules again, guys.

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The NFL has to protect players from themselves. Players are always going to say they are fine and want to continue to play. Every game needs a truly independent observer who can disqualify an individual player until they are properly evaluated and if it is even questionable kept out the remainder of the game. This definitely wouldn’t be popular and I’m sure there could be a lot of controversy but if the NFL and NCAA cares about player safety they must be even more proactive. JMHO.

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It was clear last week Tua got rocked pretty hard. Concussions are weird things. I’ve seen people take hits that didn’t even knock them down or out that two days later show up with the symptoms. If they were questioning whether Tua would start last night means they knew he had a concussion, and they let him play anyway.

Hope the coach get fined and the medical staff gets replaced ASAP.

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Hasn’t the Dolphins organization been in trouble, pretty much all of the offseason? Could this just be another example of disfunction within it?

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Yeah, that was about the worst I’ve ever seen. That was horrific, and they just kept showing it over and over and over again.

Inexcusable that he was even out there in the first place.

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This happened right after Al Michaels and the other guy were gushing about the Dolphins’ renewal under the new coach, of the “new style of young coaches”, etc.

As soon as his fingers went loco, all that praise was rendered as meaningless babble.

Amazon should be pissed. It won’t reflect upon them directly, but they’ll always be a notable part of the story. New coach, new coaching style, new medium for streaming games… really bad incident that undermines the credibility of the league and another dent in the game. The giant Nerf helmets used in camps contribute to the contrast in how this was mangled.

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Had this happen with my son in high school. 2 days after a game he’s in a dark room with headaches.
He decided not to play college ball due to multiple concussions.

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I agree with almost everything except this part. He go whipped around and down, and his head hit the turf very hard. I think it would have knocked any QB out. And the arms and hand thing is not uncommon for getting knocked unconscious. But it’s still scary to see.

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I had a bad concussion as a child, not from sports, but from a blow to the head (long story). I was nine years old, and what I remember was being very sick (nausea, vomiting, dizzy) for more than a week, with a massive headache for which aspirin didn’t help much. I didn’t leave my bed for more than a week.

I had been checked out at the hospital, and was told it was “only a concussion” and “he’ll be fine in a couple of days”. This was in the mid-sixties and concussions were not understood as well. I had a number of recurring physical problems into my mid twenties, none of which were ever associated with the original concussion, but looking back I’m sure they were. They included:

  • what I now assume were milder concussions, with milder symptoms anytime I had the slightest head bump
  • frequent severe headaches that would last for 24 or more hours
  • some really weird visual effects, that I cannot really describe, usually triggered by florescent lighting
  • some really weird visual effects and dizziness that I often felt anytime I woke up and tried to get up and walk at night, in the dark

These all stopped in my mid twenties. I’m not sure as I read about concussions and the mental health effects, whether I was ever impacted by some of those potential problems - it would be too hard to recognize those on yourself as a child.

In my 40s, when my son was young (4 years old), I got roped into coaching his soccer team, which I ended up doing for more than a decade. I took classes in coaching and learned to play soccer as a result. The first time I ever returned a ball, played from a distance, with my head, I was instantly in pain and felt mild concussion symptoms for a few days. It started to become clear to me on that occasion, that I had another concussion, and that I must be more susceptible as a result of the long term effects of the original bad concussion in my youth. (Or, perhaps, I am simply genetically predisposed to be more susceptible to concussions).

Either way, I coached the team in every possible technique to avoid “headers”, which made me famous as “some kind of kook” in local youth soccer. I was very happy when my son choose to play other sports, rather than football.

It’s great that everyone now recognizes the dangers of concussions and has put in place all the current safeguards, but they are too often, as in this case, ignored to the players detriment.

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Good call. I should have re-phrased that - the bounce wasn’t the worst I’ve seen, I’ll put it that way. But there was a lot of centrifugal energy in the way he was swung around.

salUTE’s story is a good example of the cumulative aspect to concussions & risk for more concussions, etc. With better imaging maybe we can see those & perhaps develop better protection. They’ve been working hard, some of those helmets are “interesting” (not including the giant helmets from camps this year).

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After watching both incidents he should not have played at all. I get wanting to be a team guy but it is not worth it. Having had a severe concussion myself, time is needed. I feel for him and don’t wish that on anyone. Shame on Miami.

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I hope Tua is working with the doctors and following their prescribed protocols. He doesn’t want to wake up when he is 40 with blinding headaches and short term memory impairment.

Only time can heal something like this.

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Put this in the ‘no duh’ category:

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Dolphins ruled out Tua…

That’s a bit beyond No Duh - that’s actually insulting.

Any remaining Shulas should march on their offices.

Sheesh

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I don’t expect to see Tua on the field anytime soon. I get they have to make the formal report because…gambling degenerates. That said, they could’ve made the formal announcement immediately following the Thursday game and didn’t.

Something tells me at a minimum there will be changes in the offseason to the protocol based on what happened here.

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One of the NFL pregame shows on Sunday showed one proposed change they’re trying to get added for Week 5 this week, which is “lack of major motor stability” (ie, stumbling around) like Tua did and the MD said was a lingering back problem.

There were some really good comments by Hasselbeck, Rex Ryan, Randy Moss and Tedy Bruschi. Dead serious issue, Moss explained how he’s been coaching little kids for years and unless moms think it’s safe, that well could start to dry up (more).

Rex Ryan was really passionate - “you have to treat these players like they’re your own sons. You don’t need an MD to tell you when somebody is stumbling around that there’s no problem, that it was something else, when his teammates have to help hold him up. As a fan of the game, I was angry!”

Then they had an MD explain in depth the challenges with treating concussions - lack of adequate imaging, the eye test (which helps but isn’t perfect), etc. She said there are some biomarkers they’re looking at - proteins released when somebody is concussed - but the science is behind on real-time diagnosis of concussions.

“When you have a broken arm, we have X ray, when you have an ACL we have MRI. Right now we don’t have the same level of objective diagnostic information for brain injury and we have to be more conservative on the subjective signs we do get”.

Chris Collinsworth summed up the thinking - “The NFL is at serious risk with this issue.”

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Anytime a person experiences massive force - which is pretty evident - and presents with posturing; decorticate, decerebrate, stumbling, loss of consciousness, altered consciousness, memory (even momentarily), nausea, vomiting etc.
It’s really not that hard to get someone off the field for an exam, CT, MRI etc.

Money, blood lust, and machismoism. Those might be harder to change.

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I want Tua to make all the money he can. Hopefully he can prove negligence and get paid and never play again.

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