Another NFL quarterback concussion rocks fans on Thursday Night Football’s Miami-Buffalo game
Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa suffered his third concussion, reigniting concerns about the sport’s long term risks to players.
The collision lasted only a moment.
And then came the aftermath, a nightmare in high definition.
Late in the third quarter of a Thursday Night Football matchup between the Miami Dolphins and Buffalo Bills, Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa darted for a first down, lowered his head, and rammed into the chest of Bills safety Damar Hamlin.
Tagovailoa, 26, dropped to the ground; the back of his head smacked against the field. His head lolled to the left, while his right arm jutted out awkwardly in a “fencing response,” a reaction observed in victims of traumatic brain injuries.
Trainers determined that Tagovailoa had suffered a concussion — at least the third of his career — and he was removed from the game.
The Dolphins lost, 31-10, but the game itself quickly became an afterthought. Concern for Tagovailoa spread across social media, and viewers and players once again were confronted by the long shadow of the NFL’s concussion crisis, which The Inquirer explored in a recent investigation, The Final Penalty.
» READ MORE: Former Philadelphia Eagles players suffer the effects of concussions
“Tua suffered a traumatic brain injury on this play, no question,” Chris Nowinski, the cofounder of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, wrote in a post on X.
Nowinski’s nonprofit advocates for athletes and military veterans who have suffered brain injuries. He also recruited former NFL players to donate their brains to Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center; among those who agreed to participate was Frank Wycheck, the Northeast Philadelphia native and former Tennessee Titan, who estimated he suffered 25 concussions and died in 2023 at age 52.
“Many docs may advise Tua to retire based on his frequent concussions alone,” Nowinski wrote. “Tua may not see those doctors.”
In 2022, Tagovailoa suffered two concussions within the same week, the second of which left the quarterback in a fencing response, similar to how he appeared on Thursday.
“Really just praying for Tua’s long term health,” former quarterback Robert Griffin III wrote on X. “Another concussion puts him at 3 officially and countless other scares. Think of the person not just the player.”
Hamlin, 26, collapsed after he tried to make a tackle during a Monday Night Football game in January 2023 and went into cardiac arrest. He was resuscitated on the field.
Hamlin told The Athletic that his collision with Tagovailoa was a routine play and offered prayers to the quarterback.
“I hope he has a speedy recovery,” Hamlin said. “I know he’s a dog. He’s a fighter. He’ll be back soon, for sure.”
The Inquirer, as part of its investigation, spoke to a dozen starters from the 1980 Philadelphia Eagles, and to relatives of two starters who have died, and found that 12 of the 14 developed a range of cognitive issues after retirement — from memory loss and depression to personality changes and movement disorders.
Jerry Sisemore, the team’s former right tackle, said he suffered concussions “daily” in his 12 seasons with the Eagles.
“Now, I’m starting to stumble a lot,” he said. “I get lost. I can’t drive by myself anywhere. I used to love driving. Now I can’t go to the store and back without getting lost.”
In 2014, the NFL agreed to settle lawsuits that thousands of former players had filed against the league, alleging that it failed to protect them from the long-term health risks of multiple brain injuries.
The league funds a settlement program that is supposed to pay former players between $25,000 and $5 million if they have neurocognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease).
Since 2017, the settlement program has paid out more than $1.3 billion. Yet among the 20,572 former players who are eligible — those who retired before July 7, 2014 — just 4,057 have submitted claims. Only 1,802 players, or 44%, have actually been paid.
Current NFL players, like Tagovailoa, are not eligible to submit claims to the concussion settlement program.
» READ MORE: Former Eagles share stories of battling concussions — and playing through them