NFL Head Injuries Are Part of the Product

The NFL’s great talent creates spectacle that distracts from scandal. Whenever the league suffers from stories that can’t be contained on the sports page, it manages to change the subject to the latest on-field events and trades. Yesterday’s disgrace becomes today’s secondary thought. This league can clean up its own stench faster than Minnesota Vikings quarterback Justin Jefferson sprinting down the field after a 97-yard touchdown pass. (Now let’s look at the highlights! Wait, what were we talking about?)

We’re living that dynamic now with Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who has been sidelined with a concussion since last week’s game against the Buffalo Bills. With the Dolphins trailing late in a lackluster home game, Tagovailoa’s head collided with a Bills defender. He immediately fell to the turf and assumed the alarming post-concussion position known as the “fencing response.” After several minutes of lying on his stomach and receiving assistance from various medical personnel as players from both teams knelt down, Tagovailoa walked off the field under his own power.

This isn’t Tagovailoa’s first brush with a concussion. In 2022, he suffered two concussions on the field, both times with his head hitting the turf. That offseason, Tagovailoa considered quitting the game. According to Tagovailoa, his mother convinced him to return to the field. Now, she wants him to retire. Tagovailoa returned triumphantly last year with a concussion-free season, a playoff berth and a new $200 million contract. But the memory of his body falling to the ground in 2022 has always cast a shadow over his career.

In the offseason, during a wide-ranging interview with radio host Dan LeBatard, Tagovailoa revealed that he was learning jiu-jitsu to learn how to fall without hitting his head. In August, he also announced that he had started wearing one of the new VICIS helmets, which are designed to reduce head injuries. As Tagovailoa said, “It was about a percent better than the helmet I had. Everything counts, so I’m going to play to that percent. So if you look at last year, nobody really hit me in the head. It was just the ground.”

Tagovailoa’s comments reveal an inexorable problem with the NFL’s approach to concussions in terms of PR — namely, that the NFL has protocols and safeguards in the hope that no one worries or thinks about it anymore. Yes, you can have new helmets, softer turf, and changes to the tackle rules. But all that will do is make the game safer, not safer. These rule and equipment changes are like cigarettes with extra-long filters. I don’t question whether the VICIS helmet is a few percentage points safer than the ones players wore before. But even in an NFL drunk on gambling profits, those aren’t the odds we should expect anyone to play.

The league’s reaction to Tagovailoa’s concussion was strikingly different from what we’re used to hearing. Las Vegas Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce said, “I’d tell him to retire. It’s not worth it.” Media members, especially former players who work for the Network, urged him to leave the game before he ended up like so many players before him: retiring with slurred speech, poor memory and a syndrome known as CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). “If I were him, I would seriously consider retiring from football at this point,” said studio host and Hall of Fame center Tony Gonzalez. “If that was my son, I would say, ‘Maybe it’s time.’ That’s not something you want to mess around with.”

It’s a terrible irony that the Bills player whose body caused Tagovailoa’s bruising and brain bleeding was defensive end Damar Hamlin. People may remember that Hamlin was once in Tua’s position: lying on the field, surrounded by medical personnel. Hamlin nearly died, suffering cardiac arrest after a routine play. His return to the field has been described as a miracle. Maybe it is. But it’s also the kind of miracle that inspires others to follow in his risky footsteps and bring about tragedy. There’s no denying that such a return by Hamlin, Tagovailoa and others is fraught with danger. When Tagovailoa returns, as he claims, his career will be imperiled by the possibility of tragedy. But the NFL won’t have to try too hard to make fans think anything else.