The football field becomes Tua Tagovailoa‘s quiet lawn when he walks on it. With that loose, easy stride, it’s as though he were moving across the freshly mowed grass of his own yard. The cheers and jeers of the crowds don’t seem to reach him. The excitement subsides around him as he strolls toward the center’s rump.
But this time was different. When Tagovailoa collided head-first with Buffalo safety Damar Hamlin‘s chest in the Dolphins’ second game of the season, the world stopped spinning. The quarterback lay there, dazed, his arms stiff in front of him like a boxer who just took the big one. The fencing response, they call it — a clear sign of fresh trauma to the brain.
It was Tagovailoa’s third diagnosed concussion in three years. The Dolphins put him on injured reserve, and he’ll miss at least four games. Many pearl-clutching observers believe he should never play again.
The irony wasn’t lost on anyone. Hamlin, the same player who nearly died of cardiac arrest on the field not even two years ago when he took a hit to the chest, was now the one knocking Tagovailoa out of the game. In January 2023, Hamlin collapsed after a routine tackle, requiring CPR on the field as a stunned nation watched. Football’s a funny business that way. One minute you’re the nail, the next you’re the hammer.
Of course, the sport has always been brutal. In the 1960s and ’70s, amid the churning cauldron of ’60s social justice movements, frustrated players started writing tell-all books about how bad it was. Bernie Parrish of the Cleveland Browns penned They Call It a Game. Dave Meggyesy of the St. Louis Cardinals wrote Out of Their League. Chip Oliver, formerly of the Oakland Raiders, dropped High for the Game: From Football Gladiator to Hippie. They laid it all out — the injuries, the pain pills, the way coaches treated players like “meat on the hook,” as University of Texas player Gary Shaw put it in his memoir.
But not everyone bought it. Paul Zimmerman, a sportswriter who played college and semi-professional ball, dismissed Parrish’s book, saying it produced “nothing strikingly new to back up his contention that professional football is a bad, bad business.” And Zimmerman wasn’t alone in his skepticism. For every guy who stepped away, there were others who couldn’t give it up. Less than a decade later, Lyle Alzado of the Denver Broncos co-wrote Mile High: The Story of Lyle Alzado and the Amazing Denver Broncos with none other than Zimmerman himself, celebrating the game even as underdog Alzado’s weight room-forged body came back from one injury after another. Danny Kepley of the Edmonton Eskimos, the greatest franchise in Canadian Football League history, and perhaps in all of professional football, showed off his mangled fingers on the cover of The Edmonton Eskimos: Inside the Dynasty like badges of honor.
These men knew the risks. They accepted them. When reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru blew the lid off the NFL‘s concussion crisis at the beginning of the 2010s, it looked like professional football might be on life support. The public learned about the pathetic final acts of tough guys such as Mike Webster, the Pittsburgh Steelers great whose mind was destroyed by repeated blows to the head. The league had to pay out over $1 billion to settle lawsuits with thousands of players. Now we’ve got all sorts of hands-off rules, injury protocols, and optional helmet technology. “Guardian Caps” look goofy but are supposed to reduce concussion risk. The league keeps assuring fans that it’s safer than ever to play football.
But is it? Three vicious concussions in three years for Tagovailoa. That last one against Buffalo was as bad as they come. His arms froze. His eyes glazed over. It was the kind of agonizing hit that would make most laypeople change careers. But Tagovailoa has a massive contract and loves the game. He wants to keep playing. It’s hard not to admire that dedication, even as you worry about what it might cost him down the road.
My father played football at a high level, and the contacts he made there set him up for subsequent success in business. He always said it was about assuming the risk. Once you know the dangers, it’s on you if you choose to play. It’s not some Greek tragedy. It’s a job, a dangerous one, but far less dangerous than 30 years in the coal mines. That’s how a lot of players see it. They’re not naive. They know the hazards. But this is their roll of the dice, their big gamble on their bodies and their craft. Who are laypeople outside the arena to tell them they can’t play?
The Dolphins are being cautious. They’re not rushing Tagovailoa back like they did in 2022, when he took the first of his big hits against Buffalo, looked wobbly, but came back in the game. A few days later he was stretchered off against Cincinnati with another concussion. Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel says he’ll let “Tua speak on Tua’s career.” But you wonder how much say Tagovailoa really has. The competitive fire that drives these athletes can blind them to the long-term dangers.
Look at what happened to Alzado and Kepley, both of whom wrote during their playing careers that the pleasures of the game outweighed the pains. Alzado died young, blaming steroid use for the cancer that killed him. Kepley’s later years have been marked by chronic injuries and multiple DUI arrests. Pleasurable or not, the game took its toll.
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Tagovailoa will likely be back on the field this season. He’ll stand in the pocket, calm as ever, threading passes between defenders like it’s the easiest thing in the world. The crowd will roar. The announcers will marvel at his toughness. And somewhere in the back of our minds, we observers will speculate about the price he’s paying.
The hits accumulate. The brain can only take so much. But this is the bargain made between player and game. Tagovailoa is a grown man — a college national champion, a top draft pick, and a Pro Bowler. He’s choosing to play on because he’s always been a winner, always beaten the odds, the evens, and the imaginary numbers. The freshly mowed field calls to him, promising further wonders. For now, at least, Tagovailoa still wants to answer.
Oliver Bateman is a journalist, historian, and co-host of the What’s Left? podcast. Visit his website: www.oliverbateman.com.