Why was I deferential?

NFL circles the wagons on latest Tua Tagovailoa head injury

This article is by sportswriter Mike Florio and it shames me.

The people paid to spot potential head trauma during NFL games failed (again) to do their jobs. The NFL is (again) circling the wagons in any effort to persuade fans and media that all is well.

Appearing on NFL Network (i.e., a league-owned outlet that isn’t naturally inclined to pose tough questions to in-house colleagues), NFL chief medical officer Allen Sills defended the handling of Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s latest concussion.

Because of course he did.
…
That’s an adroit way of tiptoeing around the reality that the player/patient’s specific history should have compelled a concussion evaluation during the game, after Tua hit his head on the turf. 

Of course it should have.

Whether anyone noticed any symptoms during the game is one thing. Whether anyone noticed a blow to the head that should have resulted in a simple sideline examination of Tua for any symptoms whatsoever is another.

Of course those are two different things and Dr. Sills wanted to keep them hermetically sealed from one another AND to treat all blows to the head equally and all players equally—regardless of history. Let’s say a guy has a heart attack. He goes in for heart bypass surgery. He’s cleared by the hospital and released. He goes back home and shovels snow, he lives in Buffalo. He experiences no proximate chest pain. He goes back to his doctor the next day for a check up and tells the doc then he feels a little tightness in his chest. Allows as how he was shoveling snow in Buffalo yesterday. The Disciple of the Temple of Hippocrates would straitjacket that motherfucker and put him in hospital for spite. It is the patient’s history and the risky behavior that would trigger the hospitalization. “You cannot shovel snow in Buffalo ever again, MO-RON!” Likewise Tua Tagovailoa should not play another down in the National Concussion League this season.

Dr. Sills, frankly, is adept at maneuvering his way through the potential land mines that lurk after a situation like this happens. He can, with confidence and authority, say whatever needs to be said to make it sound like everything was handled properly. Even if it wasn’t.

Of course he is. Of course he does.

In this case, the question isn’t whether Tua should have been placed in the protocol. It’s whether he should have had a proper evaluation, based on the fact that his head struck the turf.

Obviously, something happened to Tua. A day later, he had sufficient symptoms to land in the protocol. The comments from Dr. Sills gloss over the simple reality that maybe, just maybe, someone should have taken a close look at Tua during, not after, the game.