Tua Tagovailoa, quarterback for the Miami Dolphins, got a concussion in Week 2 of the NFL season. It was his fourth concussion in the last six seasons, which includes time in the pros and in college.
Reports say Tagovailoa, who had the most passing yards in the NFL last year, doesn’t plan to quit the league right away. But because of growing worries about his health, he is meeting with neurologists this week to talk about his future as a player, according to ESPN.
Not long ago, Tagovailoa and the Dolphins agreed to a new four-year, $212.4 million deal that guaranteed $167 million. This made him one of the highest-paid players in NFL history.
Tagovailoa, who is 26 years old, is retiring this season. Will he still get all that promised money?
He might have to give up some of it if he chooses not to play in the NFL anymore.
An NFL player with a head injury has to go through a five-step process that includes being checked out by both team doctors and an outside neurosurgeon before they can play in a game. But the player and his doctors are the only ones who can decide if he should go back to the field.
An NFL spokesman said, “In the end, the player and his doctors make the decision about whether to return to the game.”
If Tagovailoa is told he is healthy enough to play football again, but he still doesn’t want to, he won’t get paid more than his $43 million signing bonus and $1.1 million pay for this season (more on that later).
Ginnitti said, “If he’s medically cleared to play football again but chooses to retire instead, he will lose the remaining $124 million guaranteed.”
The Dolphins did not answer right away when asked for feedback.
There are times when a player and his team could agree on a deal that would give the player some of the money left on his contract if he retired. However, both the player’s reps and the team would have to agree to this.
In 2019, the same thing happened with Andrew Luck, quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts.
Luck suddenly quit the NFL before the 2019 season because he was hurt a lot. He was in the middle of a five-year, $122 million deal with the Colts. The Colts chose not to get back the $24.8 million they sent to Luck that season, even though the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement said they should have.
Luck was said to have had one concussion, but most of his injuries were not to his head. He was unable to do some things because of injuries to his shoulder, calf, belly, ankle, and kidney.
Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said after the game that people should worry less about Tagovailoa’s future in the NFL and more about his health. He said, “I think it would be so wrong of me to even touch that subject. It’s more in line with actually caring about the person.”
When he was in college at the University of Alabama, Tagovailoa got a concussion. He has also had three them in the NFL. Some of the games he played, like when he was a kid playing football, may have had other concussions that weren’t recorded.
Tagovailoa was hit hard by a defender and hit his head, which was the last time he was believed to have had a concussion. The hit made his arms stiff and his fingers curled in what the National Library of Medicine calls a “fencing response.” This can happen when someone has a brain injury.
How many blows to the head are too many?
A study from the University of Oxford in 2023 found that people who have had “three or more even mild episodes of concussion should be counseled on whether to continue high-risk activities.”
A well-known 2018 study from Boston University found that people who have been hit in the head more than once, even if they did not get a formal concussion diagnosis, have a higher chance of getting chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. This is a brain disorder that has been linked to playing football and some other contact sports.
People who get concussions may also have health problems later in life, such as cognitive loss, neurobehavioral changes, and neurodegenerative diseases.
