The big story of the week was Thursday night’s very unpleasant Tua Tagovailoa injury. The hit didn’t look too bad initially. The defender swung Tua down by the hips as the quarterback released the pass and Tua’s head struck the ground after his torso landed, which was not really noticeable live. The closeup angle which followed immediately showed there was a serious problem, as Tua’s fingers extended and twisted in a very unnatural way (a symptom indicative of a brain injury). It took a good 10 plus minutes for the trainers to get him up on a board and scoot him off to the hospital. The good news is that he was able to fly home with the team. The bad news is that it was only five days earlier that he appeared to stumble woozily after taking a hard hit. The player said it was a back injury, and the independent specialist (who is employed by the league to make sure concussed players are not allowed back on the field) cleared him to return.
Concussions are bad, but concussions when the brain is not done healing from a previous injury are REALLY, REALLY bad. The Dolphins say they followed all the procedures, and I suppose they did. Tua said it was his back and he was fine, but you can’t trust players to take themselves off the field, especially one in such an important year for his future prospects. The NFL fired the guy who cleared Tua to go back in last Sunday (and thus making him eligible for Thursday’s game) for not following procedures properly. OK, that’s great, but anyone who saw the replay of Tagovailoa reeling after that hit last weekend could have told you he suffered some kind of head injury. I just hope Tua doesn’t end up like Junior Seau.
Not a very happy topic, but as I thought about last week’s games, I just felt like it was the most important thing that happened. Sometimes it’s hard to be a football fan and not feel like an ancient Roman enjoying their bread and circuses, screaming for blood at the coliseum. I guess that we, unlike those Romans, at least feel queasy when serious injuries occur, but for me, it’s been 35 years (and many terrible injuries) and I keep watching. The players are choosing to be there and they are making pretty good money, but lifetime health insurance was not a part of the most recent collective bargaining agreement, which is perhaps not surprising since the players union in the NFL is notoriously weak. The nonprofit (HA!) NFL office, which can afford to give Roger Goodell $50 million a year in salary, needs to address this issue before they are forced to do so by an outside party.
Ok, rant over. I’ll just mention a couple things about the Lions. A 48-45 loss to the previously offensively challenged Seahawks makes clear what we all already suspected: this defense is pretty terrible. Dan Campbell promised changes in both scheme and personnel, so we’ll see what comes of that. The good news is that the offense has been tremendous, #1 in both offensive yardage and points per game. There’s still this tendency to take a quarter off in every game, usually consisting of several consecutive three-and-outs. Goff still makes several WTF throws (against Seattle, one of them was an interception returned for a TD), but considering the Lions have a first year offensive coordinator and have suffered key injuries on both the offensive line and skill position groups, the offense has been fantastic. Let’s fix that defense, please. And maybe find a reliable placekicker.
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