Someone on the Dolphins medical staff should be fired for what happened last night. In one of the scariest moments I’ve ever seen in the NFL, Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa was carted off the field with a serious concussion after taking a routine sack as his injury condition was misdiagnosed after the Bills win last Sunday.
I wish I could just talk about the game that transpired last night. This could have been an easy, uplifting discussion about how the Cincinnati Bengals, led by Joe Burrow (20/31 (65%), 287 passing yards, 2 TDs), overcame a slow first three quarters to exploded on the Miami defense in the 4th, scoring 13 unanswered points to win 27-15 and knock off the undefeated Dolphins.
Or we could be talking about how sick those Bengals ‘White Tiger’ uniforms were. Whoever designed those outfits deserves a promotion!
But, we can’t. We can’t talk about this game as one of the ugliest, disgraceful aspects of the NFL’s past has reared its ugly head again at 5:48 of the 2nd Quarter.
On that minute mark, Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa broke free from the pocket as the rush closed in on him and looked downfield, hoping to find an open wide receiver. Unfortunately for him, there was nobody open in his line of sight and he was sacked by Bengals DT Josh Tupou, who innocently threw the QB over his shoulder and drove the back of Tua’s head into the ground.
Tua’s body instantly seized up and he went completely stiff as suffered his second concussion in the last 5 days. For the next ten minutes of real time, doctors and members of both team’s training staff worked to get Tua onto a stretcher and drove him out of the stadium to the University of Cincinatti’s hospital room to everybody’s shock and horror.
When I say that the stadium went completely silent during this whole ordeal, I mean it. You could have legitimately heard someone drop a dime on the ground from the nosebleed section as everyone in that stadium was concerned for Dolphins QB’s health.
It was a bad injury.
Yet, for those who followed this lead up to this game, this probably wasn’t a surprise as Tua Tagovailoa OBVIOUSLY suffered a concussion/serious spine injury during the Dolphins win against Buffalo last Sunday on a very similar play. However, the Dolphins medical staff somehow fooled the NFL into thinking that Tua’s injury was just a mundane ‘back issue’.
How did NFL league office (or whoever’s in charge of player safety) really allow Tua Tagovailoa, who was stumbling around like a guy who just came out of a club at 3AM only 5 days ago, to play this game? Do they want another member of the NFLPA to suffer from a traumatic brain injury?
Nevertheless, the biggest blame lies at the feet of the Dolphins training/medical staff as they could have killed Tua Tagovailoa last night. They were the ones who signed off on Tua reentering the game against Buffalo when he clearly was woozy and had suffered some sort of brain/head/spine injury, while they were also the ones who allowed him to play last night.
Whoever is in charge of their concussion protocols down in Miami should be punished IMMEDIATELY! Their obviously conflict of interest (as they are employed by the team) has gotten in the way of their responsibility to the health and wellbeing of the players and Tua’s injury is a direct effect from that.
If I was playing in Miami, I’d be scared to head back onto a football field knowing that those medical professionals either don’t care about my safety or care about the success of the franchise more than me.
It’s a horrible look when a team is willingly disregarding the health of its star athletes, let alone the ones who barely make the roster or are backups, in order to win a silly kid’s game. Yes, we all love football and take the results of the NFL very seriously, but it is just a game at the end of the day.
This sport has no bearing on the real world aside outside of its established sphere of influence. Yet, the management and staff of the Dolphins franchise must feel differently as they have now been proven to let their paid employees nearly die for an artificial ‘win’.
I think the Dolphins hierarchy and management are taking Machiavellian’s “The ends justify the means” a little too seriously.
And, with owner Stehen Ross still serving his suspension for tampering with the New Orleans Saints, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and New England Patriots organizations, I’m beginning to really dislike the hierarchy and organization that is the Miami Dolphins.
They’re just proving themselves to be ruthless hacks and cheaters.
Don’t get me wrong, the fans and players are honest, hardworking, great people, but the ones who are in charge down in Miami don’t seem to be.
Hopefully that changes and they learn their lesson over this terrible Tua situation.
As for Tua, I hope he recovers as quickly and safely as possible as a traumatic brain injury is that last thing anyone wants while playing this game. From what I’ve heard, everything sounds like Tua is recovering nicely, so I hope that good fortune continues.
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