WATCH: Top NFL doctor goes in-depth into Tua Tagovailoa injury, league concussion protocol
In the wake of the horrific head injury Tua Tagovailoa sustained on Thursday night, new scrutiny is being brought to the NFL’s concussion protocol and, more specifically, whether or not the Miami Dolphins properly adhered to it.
An NFL Players Association inquiry into Tagovailoa’s return to play on Sunday against the Buffalo Bills — which is questioning whether he should’ve been allowed back in the game after hitting his head on the turf and stumbling around shortly after — now has new impetus to learn what happened. On Friday, speaking with NFL.com columnist Judy Battista, the NFL’s chief medical officer, Dr. Allen Sills, sought to offer insight on what might’ve happened and what comes next, both in the case of Tagovailoa and the league at-large.
With Tagovailoa outwardly displaying concussion-like symptoms after the hit on Sunday, Batista asked Sills if he should’ve been allowed back in at all. Sills deferred to the review.
“I think we have to go through and review all of the data. We have to speak with everyone involved and understand exactly what they saw and what they heard and what data was available to them and did they correctly apply the concussion protocol. That’s what we always ask our personnel to do, is apply the protocol. And again, we can’t make that decision. We — I’m saying me as a physician, I can’t make the decision watching on television at home,” Sills said.
Sills added that the concussion protocol requires two doctors — the team-employed physician plus and an independent neurologist — to clear a player to return to a game. Making sure that is what happened will certainly be part of the joint NFL-NFLPA review.
Beyond that, Battista asked if Tagovailoa would have been checked for a concussion in the days between Sunday and Thursday, even if he had passed the protocol the day before.
“Absolutely. I know that he was checked after the game. I know that he was checked the following day. In fact, every player who gets an examination on game day gets a follow-up exam the following day even if that exam was negative — that’s part of our concussion protocol. And then I know that this player was checked every day leading up to the game,” Sill said.
One of the biggest dangers with concussions and head injuries is sustaining two or more in quick succession, i.e. a matter of days. While Tagovailoa was officially classified as having a back injury as a result of the hit on Sunday, Battista noted how his head hit the ground in similar fashion and his wobbly legs.
She asked Sills about the possibility that the injury Tagovailoa sustained on Thursday was made worse by his recent blow to the head.
“Yeah I think Judy it’s impossible to know that, but certainly that’s one of the factors we want to look at,” Sills said.
And while the review will likely be a murky affair at least until it is concluded, Sills said that once it is, the league will be happy to share its findings with interested parties.
“What I can tell you Judy is this: As soon as we finish that review, we’ll release the results of that to everyone. We want to be as transparent and open about this as possible. We certainly want to learn, to improve, to get better, and we want to be the best in the world at diagnosing and managing these injuries. And so if we find that we fell short or if we find that there are things that we need to change, we will be up front about doing that,” Sills said.