There is so much blame to go around surrounding Tua Tagovailoa’s scary concussion.
Fingers were pointed everywhere — at Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel, the organization, the league, the neurologist (the “unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant” was fired on Saturday) even the player who insisted on playing.
How about just blame all of us?
Aren’t we all complicit in this?
We, the fans, myself included, wanted to see Tua come back and play last Sunday against the Bills. I was happy to see him come back, figuring he was medically cleared. I also wanted him to play against the Bengals on Thursday just so I could see a good matchup with Joe Burrow.
The gamblers, the fantasy players, other media and social media all cared about whether he was going to play and not about the player himself, almost as if he was an object or commodity.
We all applaud players playing hurt, troll players who take a game off and think nothing of the health of the player once he’s medically cleared.
All this so we could be entertained by the world’s best players every Thursday, Sunday and Monday.
So if we were more excited about Tua playing and less about what happened four days before against Buffalo, then shouldn’t we be feeling a little guilty?
Aren’t we all hypocritical in piling on and placing blame everywhere after the fact?
There are numerous solutions that could be put in place, such as banning rag-dolling players and being quicker with the in-the-grasp whistle, forbidding a player from playing four days after being wobbled on a Sunday game.
Even quarterbacks shouldn’t be allowed to slide so late that a defender can’t avoid him.
But even the best intentions didn’t work.
The NFL and the players union agreed to hire and place three unaffiliated neurotrauma consultants at each game. They were hired to work with team physicians to diagnose concussions.
That failed.
The core of this is someone needs to save a player from himself.
But even that might not be possible.
Our culture has put so much emphasis on winning and money that a football player is pressured to run through a proverbial wall to ensure his future earnings.
With that mindset, I wouldn’t put it past a player telling medical staff that another area of the body is injured, just to avoid being evaluated for a head injury.
So how do we resolve this?
I’m not sure if we can, especially if a player wants to play and is more concerned about now than what’s happening decades from now. Isn’t that how younger people think?
A terrific perspective was given by retired NFL running back LeSean “Shady” McCoy, a co-host on “Speak,” on Fox Sports 1.
“As a player, if I passed a test, there’s so much that goes into that (now). I think about my family, I think about my children, I think about my parents. If that was me in that situation, I would do it again,” McCoy said. “Because I would sacrifice my body, my head, my arm, my knees — for my family. My parents now, they’re both retired. My children, private schools, I’m comfortable, I’m happy. And I would do that for my family.
“When we talk about this game, from a perspective of a player, this is important to us. I see a lot of doctors, they talk about it. They can be doctors for 40-50 years, they’re making their money. (We have) a small window. So all I’m saying is this — most players agree with me — if I can go out there, I’m safe, I feel safe, the doctors cleared me and I feel fine, I’m gonna go out there and take that chance … for my family. And I would do it over and over again.
Fellow co-host Emmanuel Acho interjected: “At what cost?”
“At all cost. At all cost. For my family. I would do it,” McCoy said. “Lemme tell you this, my kids will never grow up where I grew up. The food I ate, the condition I lived in. This is the real truth. A lot of players, they would do it the same way.
“Look at Tua, Tua was having a great year, bro. He was gonna get paid a hundred million dollars. … I don’t know how he grew up. But if it’s me, I’m doing it — at any cost to make sure my children never grow up the way I grew up. They have the best in life, college paid for, going to the best schools, right? I would do it. That’s just me.”
Once that belief system is ingrained in the mind of a football player, what you saw last Thursday with Tua won’t be the last you see it.
