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Marcel Louis-Jacques, ESPN
MIAMI GARDENS — For the primary moment in 42 days, Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa stepped to the rostrum on the staff’s coaching facility on Monday. He had held the door discoverable for a communications staffer, as he all the time does, prior to taking his habitual place in entrance of a bunch of media contributors.
He’d spent the week 5 weeks on injured keep later struggling the 3rd concussion of his NFL profession on Sept. 12. Consistent with NFL coverage, avid gamers on keep aren’t required to talk to the media. Tagovailoa used to be technically nonetheless on keep, however a staff supply stated he get his weekly information convention out of the best way prior to his apply window opened in Future 8.
Tagovailoa used to be terse all over the 13-minute alternate, admitting he were annoyed through the method of going thru concussion protocol for the 3rd moment in two years. He stated he’d been absent of any concussion signs since Sept. 13, however the staff positioned him on IR so he may extra and make allowance his mind to heal.
He stated he didn’t like the verdict to take action — particularly as Miami went 1-3 with out him — however understood the Dolphins’ reasoning.
“What I do know is that I think the team did what was best in the interest of me,” he stated. “Knowing that I’m a competitor, and given what the doctors have told me that having a substantial amount of time to rest and recover would have been good for me, I think they did what was best in terms of protecting myself from myself.”
On Friday, the Dolphins introduced Tagovailoa would go back for Sunday’s recreation in opposition to the Arizona Cardinals (1 p.m. ET, Fox). His lengthy highway again to motion used to be a wary one. It featured visits with a number of neurologists to gauge the dangers of constant to play games soccer. Despite the fact that Tagovailoa says he has been symptom-free because the hour later struggling the concussion, his stint on IR used to be the longest of his profession. And now that he’s i’m ready to go back, his coaches and teammates are urging him to play games smarter, together with sliding extra when scrambling.
“Well, how much risk do we take when we get up in the morning to go drive to work? Get into a car crash, I don’t know,” he stated this past. “Every time we all suit up, we’re all taking a risk that we could potentially get hurt, whether it’s a concussion, a broken bone, anything. You get up off of the bed the wrong way, you potentially could risk you spraining your ankle.
“There’s simply chance in any and the entirety and I’m keen to play games the percentages, that’s it.”
TAGOVAILOA WAS BRIEFLY hospitalized after hitting the back of his head on the ground and suffering a concussion in a Week 4 game against the Cincinnati Bengals in 2022. The blow triggered a fencing response — an unnatural posturing of the upper extremities that indicates a traumatic brain injury — witnessed by a national audience on “Thursday Night time Soccer.”
He missed two games before returning to play in another nationally televised game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. In the first quarter of that game, he lowered his shoulder into linebacker Devin Bush as he finished off a 5-yard scramble. He did it again to pick up a first down in the third quarter.
“Tutor, I’m sorry,” Tagovailoa told McDaniel after the first hit he initiated. “I wanted that.”
He completed the sport and went on to begin the later 10.
In Future 16, on the other hand, his head collision the garden once more in opposition to the Inexperienced Bay Packers. He used to be recognized with some other concussion, which ended his season.
He spent 36 days in concussion protocol prior to being cleared later the season ended.
“For concussion protocol, I think the team did me the biggest service throughout that,” Tagovailoa informed USA Nowadays in 2023. “They never allowed me to go through protocol normally until the season was done. So that’s why it might have seemed like it took forever, but they were just protecting me from myself. And me and my family are very thankful to the Dolphins.”
In step with a staff supply, generation the staff didn’t explicitly close Tagovailoa unwell for the residue of the 2022 season, he and the staff by no means mentioned a timeline to go back — an try to stock his center of attention on resting, no longer a handy guide a rough development thru protocol.
When requested, McDaniel stated the occasions of that 2022 season would no longer affect how Tagovailoa used to be treated in 2024.
“It’s important to approach each and every situation much like you approach every injury, which is basically, ‘We’re going to handle this particular situation with this particular player,'” McDaniel stated the evening Tagovailoa used to be injured in September. “Every situation is unique to its own. I think for me, I’m not worried about anything that’s out of my hands in terms of I’m just worried about the human being. And he’ll drive the ship when we get the appropriate information. But it’s day-by-day health, really. Try to approach all that stuff that way, particularly with concussions.”
BASED ON MEDICAL suggestions, Tagovailoa and the Dolphins didn’t i’m ready a certain quantity of moment that he had to omit, however they knew he wanted extra.
The ones suggestions ended in the staff’s Sept. 17 choice to park Tagovailoa on injured keep, which mandates a participant omit a minimum of his staff’s later 4 video games.
“The medical experts deemed that he would be best served with time,” McDaniel stated Monday. “And in terms of the roster and equating what that timeline looked like, it was a little unknown, and so when the brain’s health will be determined by the time, you make that decision. Each concussion is unique to its own, but that’s why you have to really rely upon people that study the brain for a living and that was the driving force (behind the decision).”
McDaniel refused to park a timeline on Tagovailoa’s go back within the quick aftermath of his quarterback’s shock. One advantage of injured keep, he stated, is it eliminates the temptation to go back prior to 4 video games.
It used to be a constant message from McDaniel no longer simply to the community, however to Tagovailoa as smartly.
“All the science behind concussions tells you what we’ve learned is how delicate the time is right after an injury and how important it is that you don’t institute extra sources of anxiety,” McDaniel stated. “So from my vantage point, I feel it’s supremely important in understanding that, and that I’m not giving off any sort of vibes. I’m not trying to even look at, ‘OK well, how serious is this relative to his past ones?’
“For me, I completely definitely is not going to do the rest to put together the rest worse or harm any one in all our avid gamers, in particular guys which can be in concussion protocol … There’s a bundle of lovers and there’s a bundle of public that wish to aid, however fairly actually, wondering timelines — that provides forth nervousness. Seeking to meet them, seeking to assess what this implies for taking part in.”
Ten days after his injury, Tagovailoa traveled with the team for its game against the Seattle Seahawks and watched the game from the sideline, as injured players often do; however, that’s something he did not do during his previous stint in concussion protocol in 2022.
He said he was asymptomatic dating back to the day after he was diagnosed, but was instructed by the team to rest during his first week on injured reserve — McDaniel, specifically, told him to focus on being a husband and a father to his two young children.
Tagovailoa said he briefly considered retirement after the 2022 season, and several former players urged him to reconsider immediately following his concussion in September. When asked about the possibility of Tagovailoa’s retirement on Sept. 13, McDaniel said it wasn’t his place to speculate.
“I believe it will be so incorrect of me to even sniff that topic,” he said. “His profession is his.”
A team source told ESPN that none of the neurologists Tagovailoa consulted recommended retirement, nor did they express concern he was at greater risk of additional injury after giving his brain time to heal. Tagovailoa said Monday that he never considered retirement this time around.
Chris Nowinski, the co-founder and CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, said there is no universal amount of time a concussed player must rest before being deemed healthy, but Tagovailoa’s monthlong stay on IR was longer than most players receive.
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“A future off is an important quantity of moment off,” he said. “The query is making an attempt to expect the pace and seeking to play games this out, as a result of he comes again in a future and optimistically his mind is recovered, optimistically he doesn’t get unfortunate with a bulky collision and he finishes the season and everybody’s glad.
“But if he gets another concussion this season, the question in this discussion gets even harder.”
Given Tagovailoa’s deficit of concussion signs, the Dolphins opened his apply window when he was eligible in Future 8. Previous to his go back Sunday, the staff and Tagovailoa’s teammates have emphasised to him the significance of shielding himself — with an emphasis on him sliding and getting out of bounds all the way through scrambles.
“Nobody — no one’s sort of advice had affected anything that I thought in terms of returning, so no one had an effect on it,” Tagovailoa stated. “Had some conversations with my wife, but that was it.”
Nowinski stated there are only a few “black and white” indicators that might go a physician to medically counsel {that a} participant must vacate. Between the two of them are mind atrophy — which he stated is unusual for somebody of their 20s — and chronic concussion signs.
That’s to not say there are not any long-term results.
“The real retirement question every NFL player should be having though, is with how comfortable they are with developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE),” he stated. “The studies are clear that the longer you play and the more hits you take, the greater your odds of developing CTE.”
MCDANIEL SUCKED HIS TEETH Monday when reminded of Tagovailoa’s first recreation again from concussion protocol in 2022.
His message to his quarterback this moment round presented a callback to Tagovailoa’s sideline feedback two seasons in the past.
“My answer would be, ‘You don’t need ‘that one’ this time around,'” McDaniel stated, relating to Tagovailoa feeling the wish to snatch a parched collision later coming back from a concussion in 2022. “And I think it’s been eye-opening. … He’s just in a different place as far as a leader of this team and feels tremendous responsibility to do everything in his power to be on the field, so part of that is protecting yourself. I’ve got to make sure that he’s properly protected, but at the same time I can’t control everything and he has to be able to protect himself — regardless of the first-down conversion that he’s trying to get.”
Tagovailoa stated his accountability to offer protection to himself, pronouncing it calls for him to switch part of his competitive taking part in taste that dates again to highschool, when he used to be the top-ranked dual-threat quarterback within the public. That suggests sliding, getting out of bounds — no matter is helping him keep away from touch, when conceivable.
His teammates agree.
“Damn right, tell his ass all the time,” broad receiver Tyreek Hill stated Wednesday. “S—, when we were playing against the Colts, you see the fans start clapping for [Colts quarterback] Anthony Richardson when he slid. I said our fans need to clap for Tua, make him slide. We need you, bro, next play.
“That s— is actual, it’s actual. We like him. From brother to brother, we adore him. Like he’s a plenty a part of this staff.”
While Tagovailoa’s stay in concussion protocol is technically longer than any of his previous stints, his progression through protocol was slowed by league rules.
Players cannot clear protocol without being a full practice participant, and players on injured reserve are not allowed to practice until they’ve missed at least four games.
Tagovailoa will not wear a Guardian Cap upon his return, which is worn on top of a player’s helmet and is meant to minimize the risk of sports-related concussions. The NFL said it saw a 50% decrease in concussions once its players began using them in 2021 — but a peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Athletic Training said the data behind the NFL’s claim has never been published, and the additional protection provided by Guardian Caps is marginal, at best.
Nowinski, who earned a doctorate degree in behavioral neuroscience from Boston University, said the upside of wearing a Guardian Cap is “no longer confirmed” and the 14-ounce cap would actually make Tagovailoa’s head more likely to strike the ground.
Tagovailoa did not offer insight into why he won’t wear one, calling it a “non-public choice.”
Tagovailoa wears the Vicis Matrix QB helmet, which is specifically designed for quarterbacks. A jointly performed laboratory test run by the NFL and NFLPA found it to be safer than wearing a normal helmet with a Guardian Cap atop it.
Nowinski said it’s difficult to say a player is more susceptible to concussions after suffering one.
“The science on that isn’t sturdy,” he said. “So we are saying that on the whole, you take a look at particular person circumstances and general developments, you grow to be extra liable to supplementary concussions the extra concussions you’ve gotten. However it’s no longer a instantly layout for everyone. And the severity of every concussion isn’t a instantly layout for everyone.”
Tagovailoa said he’s willing to assume the risks. He said he hasn’t paid attention to any speculation outside the Dolphins’ facility, but he was asked Monday for his message to fans who were genuinely concerned for his health.
“I respect your worry, I truly do,” he said. “I really like this recreation and I find it irresistible to the dying of me. That’s it.”
