What is the connection that people are making between Tua's apparent wooziness last week and his injury last night?
If it's that Tua may have been concussed last week, and that made a concussion more likely this week due to repetitive injury, fair enough. There's science behind that, but there also needs to be evidence that he was actually concussed last week.
But, are people suggesting that they play last night that caused the injury was somehow caused by Tua's lack of awareness or was some other result of the prior injury? If so, I'm not seeing it. Tua looked completely sharp last night, until he got whipped to the ground.
The evidence is in your own statement. His reaction last week does look like a concussion to many. Athletes and teams have lied about concussions before so many including myself don't take a team's word for it when we see that kind of reaction.
You can look sharp and feel well after a concussion then a light or a motion can bring back symptoms. This is why they have a two* week protocol and not when you feel good.
So, did the Dolphins violate the protocols are they're written, or the protocols as they should be?
If not only team doctors (who have an ethical obligation to their patient, although that gets shady), but also an independent physician and Tua himself say that he's good to go, do we automatically assume that they're all wrong? If a guy is unsteady on his feet, are people arguing that he should be automatically out two weeks?
Honestly, my reaction about what should change in light of that hit wasn't the concussion protocols. It was Thursday Night Football itself. There probably shouldn't be games with only three days of preparation in between.
I absolutely believe they violated the protocols as written. The Players Association did too, which is why they immediately and publicly called for further investigation. He was announced, by the Dolphins, as having had a head injury, and then proceeded to re-enter the game on Sunday. They then changed it to a back injury so they wouldn't have to go through the entire concussion protocol this week, because clearly someone stumbling while holding his head has no reason to be evaluated for a concussion.
There are heaps of stories of team doctors not living up to their ethical obligations. Decades of them. It's also not the first time an "independent" doctor would have been questioned, if he was even brought into the discussion before the team said "nope, not a head injury after all, nothing to see here." And given Tua suffered a potential head injury, it really shouldn't be put on him at all to self-evaluate his readiness for play.
Honestly, I stopped watching the NFL years ago in part because of the head injuries. I was starting to get back into it this season, but nope, I'm out. It's a deadly farce.
