At what point should Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa retire?

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — It was the kind of moment when you know exactly what’s happening and yet it makes no sense. A moment when everything feels very fast and very slow all at once.

There was the speed of the collision. Tua Tagovailoa sprinted upfield. And his head met Damar Hamlin’s arm in the Miami Dolphins’ 31-10 loss to the Buffalo Bills.

It was the type of moment that made you wonder whether Tagovailoa should give all this up — whether he might retire for the sake of his long-term health. It wouldn’t be easy after he signed a four-year, $220 million deal. It wouldn’t be easy amid the polarizing evaluations of his career. It wouldn’t be easy after the Dolphins built their timing-based offense around him.

But he keeps getting concussions. In the NFL, he has had three documented concussions and one more example where he demonstrated concussion-like symptoms. In college, he had another on a play when he dislocated his hip. The other injuries Tua has suffered: broken finger, broken rib, sprained patella tendon, sprained thumb, sprained ankle (twice), strained quad, strained hip.

In football analysis, we often use the cliché about madness — the act of doing things over and over again and expecting a different result. But usually it’s about play choice or personnel or roster composition. It’s not about someone’s health and well-being.

Before we get into what’s next for Tua — because I do want to seriously consider where his career should go from here — let’s dive into what happened to Tua as seen by the players on the field.

“It was the saddest thing. I promise you it was the saddest thing,” Bills tackle Dion Dawkins said after the game. “We’re all just watching him run, and we’re like: ‘Slide bro. Slide bro. Slide bro. Slide bro. Slide.’ And this game is so fast. It’s a game of inches. If he were to just slide an inch before — it’s such a sad thing.”

Then there were Tua’s convulsions on the ground — the way his arms moved to his head.

“You see his hands look like they’re cramping. Instantly I knew what was going on,” said Dolphins rookie center Aaron Brewer, who was the first player to call for help. “I’m just trying to get the trainers on the field as fast as they can to help my guy. Instantly when I saw it, I was having flashbacks — even from when I wasn’t on the team. The whole world has seen it when he got sacked that time and had that concussion.”

Guard Liam Eichenberg leaned over Tua and held him. Jonnu Smith and Tyreek Hill stood over Tua helplessly. Tackle Austin Jackson simply took a knee a few feet away from his quarterback.

“[I was] crushed. I hate to see him like that,” Jackson said after the game. “First, I was just making sure that he was alright, because I could see in his eyes that he wasn’t there all the way. He was fighting.”

It felt too much like Tua’s first documented concussion in the NFL when he had a fencing response, where a person’s arms and/or hands flex in an unnatural position immediately following a concussion. The trainers could not get on the field fast enough, and even when they were out there, it wasn’t necessarily reassuring to have that wall of around 10 staffers.

Everyone waited for news Tua was OK.

The stadium was quiet, largely hushed to an unsettling and anxious chatter. No one moved from their seats. There was a lot of prayer among the players after the hit.

Finally, Tua sat up. And after a long wait, he stood to walk off the field.

“I’m pretty sure everybody in the stadium felt like that was the last thing that you want to see — a strong quarterback go down,” receiver Grant DuBose told me. “I just wanted to see him get up and be able to walk off. I know he went down and he stayed down for a while. The biggest thing was, I just sat and I prayed for a little bit. I prayed for his well-being.”

As Tua limped off the field, coach Mike McDaniel kissed his quarterback’s head. McDaniel said he told Tua in that moment that “he’s the starting quarterback of his family.”

They are so close that they were able to work through typically cold contract negotiations with a happy and healthy relationship this offseason. They are so close in part because McDaniel saved Tua’s career from clear disaster in 2022. They are so close because they are a quarterback and coach who care about each other.

“That’s my guy,” McDaniel said postgame.

That’s when everything moved fast.

Once Tua walked off the field and Skylar Thompson replaced him, the stadium was rapidly emptying — and bustling with discontent. The locker room was similar, with most players leaving as quickly as possible. Eichenberg left with a bag of ice on his shoulder before I could catch him for a conversation.

After the game, Tua didn’t speak to reporters. His backup and replacement Skylar Thompson said “it makes me sick.” McDaniel seemed disoriented and distracted as he answered questions in the postgame press conference. His eyes were fixed on the podium. He was slow to answer questions, with long pauses between words — making his already long-winded answers even longer. For a man who is seemingly never at a loss for words, he was searching for them.

Was Tua’s season over? What about his career? Should it be?

We didn’t get answers about when Tua would come back — whether it was safe to bring him back, which McDaniel was asked directly. He answered indirectly.

“I think from a medical standpoint,” McDaniel said, “I don’t approach things that I’m far inferior of expertise.”

But there were more questions — bigger questions.

“How much longer will Tua subject himself to this? How much longer will the NFL allow him to subject himself to injury?” FOX Sports analyst Emmanuel Acho asked in a Twitter video. “How much longer will the Miami Dolphins allow Tua to subject himself to injury? How much longer will millions of people watch as a star quarterback lay on the field motionless for seconds? It’s time we have an uncomfortable conversation about Tua Tagovailoa and his playing career.”

So let’s have it.

At this point, we know more than enough about CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), a disease affecting people who have endured repeated blows to the head, including those leading to concussions. We’ve seen how prevalent CTE is among NFL players (with a recent study finding the disease in 345 of the 376 former NFL players they studied), and how seriously the disease can impact people’s lives, creating frightening downward spirals that, in the cases of Junior Seau, Greg Clark and Aaron Hernandez, led to their suicides.

There’s enough information to fear CTE and let it factor into — and maybe guide — what Tua does next.

If Tua retired in his prime, it would be unprecedented.

We saw quarterback Andrew Luck retire after struggling with pain in his throwing shoulder. We saw former 49ers linebacker Chris Borland retire amid concerns over his brain health. It would be brave to see someone of Tagovailoa’s stature walk away from the game over concussions.

Football is a team sport, which makes it difficult for players to pick themselves first. But Tua wouldn’t be picking himself. He’d be picking his family: his wife, his kids, his parents, his siblings.

“When the game is over with, you have so much more to live for,” former NFL player and current analyst Damien Woody said on ESPN immediately after the game.

Right now, Tua clearly lives for the game. Or, at least, he’s obsessed with it. When players returned to the locker room postgame, they eventually saw Tua, who wanted to talk ball. He wanted to check in on how they were doing. He was smiling — he had energy. It’s that energy that makes you worried about the Dolphins quarterback coming back from this concussion too quickly.

“It’s about being smart and taking time and letting him heal properly,” Dolphins defensive end and 17-year veteran Calais Campbell told me. “Once he’s healthy, I know he’s a competitor. I’m assuming he’s going to be back out there. So it’s tough, but we’ll be here to support him.”

It’s possible to love this game too much.

It doesn’t love you back.

That Tua suffered his concussion hitting Hamlin, who suffered a cardiac arrest on the field on Jan. 2, 2023, felt like a tragic example of what football can take from its players.

So I’ll ask: At what point should Tua consider retirement? 

Why not now?

And if the answer is: Super Bowls or legacy or money.

Then I’ll ask one more question: What could it cost?

Prior to joining FOX Sports as an NFL reporter and columnist, Henry McKenna spent seven years covering the Patriots for USA TODAY Sports Media Group and Boston Globe Media. Follow him on Twitter at @henrycmckenna.

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