That head injury that took out Tua Tagovailoa from last night’s Amazon Prime “Thursday Night Football” is your latest reminder that football isn’t going to be around forever.
Tagovailoa, scrambling to convert a fourth down, ran head-first into a tackle by Buffalo Bills defensive back Damar Hamlin – yes, that Damar Hamlin – and immediately went into what is called a “fencing posture,” a term used to describe the unnatural position of the arms of a person who has been severely concussed.
It’s at least the third serious on-field head injury for Tagovailoa, who went down twice in the 2022 season, one of those of the, oh, my god, a guy’s having convulsions on the field variety that we saw again last night.
This story is complicated by a couple of things – one, Tagovailoa is one of the NFL’s marquee quarterbacks, having just signed a four-year, $212 million deal with the Miami Dolphins in the summer, after passing for a career-high 4,624 yards and 29 TDs in 2023, while leading the Fish to an 11-6 record.
Two, Tagovailoa is just 26, seemingly with a long, productive career ahead of him.
But you’d like to think that he also has a long, productive life ahead of him as well.
“It’s about, what is Tua willing to risk? And that’s an intimate conversation you have to have,” former NFL star linebacker Bart Scott said this morning on ESPN’s “Get Up,” in which Scott revealed that his retirement in 2012, at the age of 32, was actually a decision that he made because of head injuries that he’d suffered, and not issues with an injured toe, as he had previously said was the reason he stepped away from the game.
“Everybody thinks I retired because of my toe, right? But really, it was because I started seeing spots and lights. I had light sensitivity. I never really shared this with anybody. I feel inclined to do this in this intimate setting that we have. I didn’t know what to do. I was like, you know what, it’s time to fold it up,” said Scott, who has said that he was never diagnosed with a concussion in his playing career, which has to make you think.
Another former NFL linebacker, Manti Te’o, said on Friday’s “Good Morning Football” on the NFL Network that he had wanted Tagovailoa, a close personal friend, “to walk” after the scary concussion that Tagovailoa suffered in a game in Cincinnati in 2022, the first one that had Tagovailoa writing on the field after a hit to the head.
“What people have to understand is, this is just a game, and then there’s life,” Te’o said. “When you watch, when you watch a young man that you’ve known since he was a little boy go out there, is it hard for me? Yea.”
Te’o said, as a clip played showing Tagovailoa slowly walking to the sidelines, as “somebody who’s been in that situation who have had a concussion, I don’t even know if Tua is there as he is walking off the field. There have been clips of me after concussions getting off the ground and walking off the stadium, walking into the locker room, I don’t remember those walks.”
“I want the best for Tua, the man, the father,” Te’o said. “He’s a father of two now. I want him to be able, not today, but 10, 15, 20 years down the line, to be able to raise his children, to be able to walk his daughter down the aisle. That’s what I want for Tua, that’s true joy.”
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Chris Graham
