Tua Tagovailoa's brain belongs to us now, and we're not giving it up without a fight. After all, it's been three days now and the only people in Punditostan who haven't urged him to retire are doing either gambling shows, fantasy shows, or both in one. Since those shows do not recognize players as humans, their disinterest is understandable.
But this was the first time for the Sunday morning auctioneers without portfolios to get their crack at diagnosing Tagovailoa's latest concussion, and the general consensus remains as it was on Friday morning—that Tua should vote for his own brainpan. This is unusual given that most studio faces tend to err on the side of "I played without half my head one time and had 17 tackles and threw for 367 yards and five scores," but nobody gets to work the pregame desk by saying, "I think we should wait for the neurologists to see him." The take must be immediate, forceful, and deniable when incorrect.
Instead, the closest anyone came to sidestepping the issue was Fox Sports' Michael Strahan, who doubled down on noncommittal by saying, "It's Tua's decision." That is, of course, a non-answer, which punditry typically abhors. It is also the answer that absolves the league from its share of responsibility and is, therefore, the answer in which the league probably takes the most comfort. Ideally, The Ginger Avenger and the rest of the league office would like the entire matter to be forgotten, but as that is not an option—at least until today's spate of new injuries—Strahan has produced the response that the mothership can live with best.
Strahan, though, has been in the minority so far. This might be a watershed moment in NFL punditocracy when the prevailing view is that a player should look out for his long-term future rather than entertain us today. But why now, and why Tua?
Knowledge is a funny thing, and seeing the fencing response on the same guy multiple times tends to sober up one's world view, especially when the other player in the Tagovailoa collision damn near died on national television two seasons ago. You can't lay the irony on thicker than that.
The report that inspired this new round of performative prudence came from NFL Media's Ian Rapoport, and if Rapoport is to be believed (and why would we want to do that at this point?), Tagovailoa has "no plans" to retire, at least not before visiting with a gaggle of neurologists this week.
That is the sensible view, as well as the one that allows the patient some say in his own future even when he doesn't actually want to confront it. There are the games he might never play, the money he might never see, the pressures brought to bear by coaches, teammates, and Miami management ... all weighed against the increased potential for brain injury. No matter how it plays out, no matter what the neurologists find and choose to tell Tagovailoa, or what he chooses to hear, the answer is bound to dissatisfy.
But for the moment, and maybe for the first time, the majority of former players are quasi-firmly on the side of Tagovailoa becoming a former player as well. One cannot wait to see what their position will be if he disappoints them and gives it yet another go. They'll just have to learn a new on-air skill: How to watch while squeamish.
