Look, you obviously don’t like Tua for…WHATEVER…reason. Fine, so be it. There have been MANY players this team has had that I haven’t liked, but all of your arguments have been nonsensical and emotionally based rather than fact based. You THEORIZE there is a vast conspiracy of the NFL covering its tracks to avoid litigation. Well, instead of saying it as fact, PROVE it as fact. The NFL’s procedures and protocols to evaluate a player for a concussion were followed. It was determined, based on the protocols as written that Tagovailoa did not have a concussion in the game against the Bills. You counter with “what back injury did he have?” That’s actually a valid question but your tone and demonstrated rancor suggests you don’t believe it at all. Well I can tell you based on VERY recent experience how a pulled muscle in your lower back can hit your sciatic nerve and make you drop like a sack of potatoes and make you VERY unsteady on your feet. I was out of work for almost a week. If I had Doctor’s right there with me that could inject me with anti-inflammatories and zylocaine, I could have gone back to work in a half hour. But I didn’t have that benefit. Now to reiterate before you reply with a “yea but” I’ve never said Tagovailoa didn’t have a concussion. I’ve only argued the PROTOCOLS were adhered to and MEDICALLY, he was cleared to return. Now, with the protocols being amended he and other players SHOULD be denied re-entry to the game…but I’ll almost willing to bet there will more scrutiny against Tua than there will against other players because if the league was SERIOUS about this…based on the Joe Burrow interview, prudence would dictate he undergo a THOROUGH battery of tests including MRIs and CT scans to ensure HE is truly cleared to play. Somehow I doubt we’ll see that level of concern.
So he wouldn't have been allowed back into the Bills game but he passed the concussion protocols on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Do you think the Dolphins would have sat him against the Bengals on the Thursday after he showed zero signs of a concussion all week? How many here would have been saying "Imagine missing a game due to getting pushed over. Told you he was made of glass" if he did miss the Bengals game? The hit on the Thursday night would have given him a concussion (and probably every other QB in the league) regardless of what happened on the Sunday. We have the same situation this week. Teddy was ruled out based on some random guy in the crowd with a pair of binoculars. He's passed all the new concussion protocols. If he continues to pass this week should he still be ruled out for Sunday just in case he takes a nasty hit that gives him a concussion? At what point is it acceptable to the crowd of public opinion to allow players to play again after a concussion? Maybe they need to write that into the new protocols?
According to the NFL, Tua was never in the 5 step protocol, and if he were, he never would have been allowed to play Thursday.
To me it certainly looked like he suffered a slight concussion during the Buffalo game. When he sat up after the fall he immediately reached directly for his head with both hands, never reached for his back or ankle. When he got up, stumbled and was unstable on his feet, again he never once reached for his back or his ankle which is what he later said was the cause of his instability, he reached for his head with both hands. That's about as clear visual evidence as you need to determine his instability was due to a blow to the head, not his back. Tua was just trying to cover it up and most probably lied to the doctor because he is a gamer and didn't want to be taken out of the game. Use your eyes and logic boys, it's not that hard to figure out what happened. You can have a slight concussion and act fine a few minutes later and lie about it. There is no real way for the doctor to know unless the player suffers lingering memory loss and instability which is not always the case. That is why the protocols are being changed since visual instability immediately following a hit is a lot harder to fake your way out of.
The elephant in the room is that diagnosing a concussion isn't easy unless the person is displaying obvious signs of lingering impairment. Tua was not after the Buffalo hit. A back injury can most definitely cause a person to stumble. However I, too, believe that he hit his head in the Buffalo game and that caused him to stumble and shake his head trying to clear it. That DOES NOT mean he had a concussion. Anyone who watches boxing/MMA etc sees fighters getting wobbled all the time and yet not being diagnosed with a concussion. Hell, being knocked unconscious doesn't always mean a severe concussion was sustained and in fact a person who remains conscious can sometimes have a more severe injury. And, the severity of a concussion isn't even known until days later as the patient is monitored and all their signs and symptoms are recorded. Only then is a "grade" given. CT scans show structural damage and that's not what a concussion is. So CT's, asking questions, etc, is not really all that accurate unless it's a sever injury, but it's all we have. If Tua went back into the locker room and passed, what would be in all honesty arbitrary tests, why would he not be cleared? The protocols aren't the problem, the medicine is. We aren't there yet where we can diagnose minor concussions with any real accuracy. Especially in a matter of minutes or even hours. What we are now seeing are kneejerk reactions from people who have no idea what's even going on. I mean, a damn neurologist cleared Tua after the hit in the Buffalo game and yet we have people that know absolutely nothing about medicine, the brain, or even concussions proclaiming that they know more than the doctors. It's laughable.
No offense to anyone here, but what "back evaluation" can you conduct inside a little tent? No x-rays. No MRI. That's not a real back evaluation at all. I had back problems for years and every time I see a new specialist, it's more xrays, more tests, more scans, etc. Each physician would also want to watch my walking motion to see if any area of my back was locked or wasn't moving correctly in certain areas. None of that can happen in a little blue tent. But here's the kicker...the real "what the heck" moment. My back problems were from the alignment of my hip. Five specialists and numerous other primary doctors completely missed it. My chiropractor was the one who figured it out; my hip was always slightly off when I visited. So what I'm saying here is, you can't evaluate a back inside a little blue tent and you can't really evaluate a back with one or two full evaluations in a state of the art medical facility. There's a ton that's not known about back pain to this day because there's so much going on along our spine.
Yesterday I stood up and my back pinched a bit, I stumbled on my first steps...... NFL would have ruled I had concussion.
