Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa left Thursday’s game against the Buffalo Bills with a concussion, the team announced.
After a fourth-down run in the third quarter, Tagovailoa collided head-first with Bills safety Damar Hamlin as he went to the ground. Tagovailoa’s teammates immediately called for trainers as he lay on the field before he eventually walked off under his own power.
Tagovailoa’s wife and two children met him in the Dolphins’ locker room, according to Amazon’s Kaylee Hartung.
“We’re told he’s conscious, awake and alert, just as he was walking off this field on his own power,” Hartung said on the broadcast after the game, a 31-10 Bills win. “We’re also told he has full movement in his extremities.”
Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said he saw Tagovailoa in the locker room and said he was “in good spirits.” Asked about a possible timeline for Tagovailoa’s return, McDaniel refused to answer.
“Right now it’s more about getting a proper procedural evaluation tomorrow and then taking it one day at a time,” McDaniel said postgame. “The furthest thing from my mind is what is the timeline. We just need to evaluate. I’m just worried about my teammate like the rest of the guys are. We’ll get more information tomorrow and then take it day by day from there.”
Last season was the only year in his career in which Tagovailoa appeared in every game for the Dolphins. In 2022, he played in just 13 games as he sustained two concussions.
Against the Cincinnati Bengals in a Thursday night game that season, Tagovailoa suffered his first concussion, exhibiting the “fencing response” after his head hit the ground on a sack.
The concussion Tagovailoa sustained against the Bengals came on the heels of a controversy in which the NFL Players Association believed he wasn’t properly evaluated for a concussion four days earlier in a game against Buffalo. Tagovailoa briefly left that game with an injury but wasn’t checked for a concussion, eventually leading the NFLPA to fire the independent neurotrauma consultant in charge of pulling players with suspected head injuries off the field. The controversy resulted in a new concussion protocol for NFL players.
Tagovailoa was concussed again later in the year in a game against the Green Bay Packers, though he wasn’t diagnosed with a concussion until the day after the game.
Tagovailoa said before this season that his parents asked him to consider retirement after his concussions in 2022 but that he opted to keep playing after having consulted a doctor.
“We went and seen a doctor. … I got to get all the information that I needed to hear from on whether it was a good idea or wasn’t a good idea” to keep playing, Tagovailoa told Meadowlark Media’s Dan Le Batard. He added his parents supported his decision to keep playing.
Tagovailoa is in his fifth season with the Dolphins, who selected him with the fifth pick in the 2020 draft. He led the NFL with 4,624 passing yards last season. Entering Thursday, he was 33-19 in his career, with 82 touchdowns and 37 interceptions.
In July, the Dolphins signed Tagovailoa to a four-year, $212.4 million contract, with $167 million guaranteed.
Skylar Thompson, who replaced Tagovailoa at quarterback Thursday, said seeing what happened to his teammate “makes me sick.”
“In my position, you never want to have your opportunity come with something like that,” he said after the game. “I have a lot of love for Tua. I’ve built a great relationship with him. You care about the person more than the player. Everybody in the organization would say the same thing. Just really praying for Tua and hopefully everything will come out all right.”
