quarterback in spite of his buckling legs, the message was unified: Concussion protocols were followed and Tagovailoa passed. The league office was confident in that message within hours of Miami's win over Buffalo, and again Wednesday, when vice president of communications Jeff Miller reiterated it.
I'm not a doctor, but that was a concussion. And I didn't need hidden-away locker room protocols to tell me that was true, or some NFL public relations statement or head coach Mike McDaniel, who relayed the diagnosis to reporters after the. Tagovailoa departing the game strapped to a stretcher was enough. The footage of the ambulance taking him to a nearby hospital for an examination was enough.
There won’t be a lot of people buying that excuse now. Instead, there’s going to be an exploding belief that what happened against the Bills and Tagovailoa’s subsequent clearance wasn’t all it was made out to be. Certainly the NFL Players Association has significant doubts about the veracity of the process in that instance.
This is why it’s questionable letting players take a big part in their own medical diagnosis, especially when they look like they’ve been concussed. There’s evidence they will lie. There’s evidence they will obfuscate. There’s evidence they’ll choose to lean into a team that wants them back on the field. And they are smart enough to know how to make that happen when they’re asked to take part in a decision about getting back onto the field.
This is the kind of thing that cuts through the league's statements that protocols were followed, and assertions by doctors and coaches and even players that everything was handled just fine. There’s a lot of evidence that suggests limitations in all of this. Especially when it appears to make no sense.