Dolphins and Chargers and Broncos, oh my - Tua Tagovailoa's terrifying concussion has the NFL all up in their heads

Is it all in my head, all in my head?
Could everything be alright without me knowing?
Is it all just some game, where everything stays the same?
Is all in my, all in my head?
– Shawn Mullins, ‘All In My Head’

“No matter how smart someone is, their capacity for kindness is their greatest gift.”
– my Mom, circa 1981

“Have you seen my purse?… Have you seen my purse?…” (usually 40-50 times a day now)
– my Mom, circa 2024

As a kid, I always posited that if there is a soul hanging out inside of of us somewhere, it must be bouncing around somewhere near your heart or your guts, as that’s where we were all told your kindness and courage resides. At least that’s what comic books led me to believe. By the time I had reached my later teens and was volunteering in memory care facilities, I started to wonder if the soul, the part of us that made us us was rattling somewhere up inside that noggin of ours. You often got to see someone who had been kind their whole lives begin to struggle with anger and outbursts, or someone who had always been devoted to their family suddenly show little to no interest. Often defining traits were some of the first to go, and it was terrifying for the person and their loved ones alike.

Moments watching others watch themselves slip away were some of the most sobering and formative moments I had coming into adulthood.

One of the more sobering moments I’ve had in recent days came while watching Tua Tagovailoa laying on the turf in the midst of the involuntary “fencing” movements that made immediately obvious he’d been knocked out for the third time in the last two seasons, his fourth such injury since his final year of college. That sort of constant head trauma is one of the core contributors linked to Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a term that has become all-too-familiar to the NFL and eventually their fans. While the severity of symptoms can vary, the most extreme cases can rob a person of themselves the same way Alzheimer’s or dementia can.

In 2010, as the league was still in the midst of wrestling with their responsibilities in this head injury nightmare, league superstar Junior Seau was in the midst of his retirement. After 20 years in the league and never once reporting a concussion, Junior was renowned for playing through every kind of pain. Broken bones, stingers, and “getting your bell rung” was just a part of the game. Toughing it out was simply something a player did. While doctors now believe his last 10 years in the league were plagued by increasing memory issues, Seau hadn’t told anyone but his nearest and dearest about the progressive impacts he was noticing. Two years into retirement, his symptoms had increased drastically. Around that time, Junior gave an interview that would prove to be one of his last to ESPN’s Jim Trotter. In the conversation, Trotter asked Seau for his thoughts on fans being upset about the “cleaning up” of violence in the game. While no one knew at the time, Junior began describing his own experiences.

“Those who are saying that the game has changed for the worst (sic), they don’t have a father that couldn’t remember his name, because of the game. If everybody had to wake up with their dad not knowing his name, not knowing his kid’s name, being able to function at a normal rate. I mean, they will understand that the game needs to change.”

Couldn’t remember his child’s name. Couldn’t even recall his own. Only a couple months after the interview, Seau’s trauma would become so acute that he’d take his own life. Astoundingly, he chose to end his life in a more slow and painful way to make sure and preserve his brain, and many suspect it was because he knew there was something important to be discovered there. Junior’s fame was a huge driver in more curiosity and truth around the subject being dragged into the light for the league.

While Seau was one of the most famous player to walk this unfortunate path, the problem itself has been endemic. 1992 Bronco draftee Shane Dronett had some amazing years and play with Denver, eventually moving on to a few other teams before making the Super Bowl with Atlanta, and against the team that drafted him. Retiring after 11 seasons in the league, Shane was already starting to show signs of paranoia and rage that would become far more prevalent after his playing days. Seven years after his retirement, he ended his life much as Seau had, drowning in his own mind.

But these injuries aren’t just to Dolphins and Chargers and Broncos, obviously. In the brains of over 300 professional football players who have been examined post-mortem, over 90% of those observed have had CTE. This sort of something is now so known and common around the league, that there are solid reports positing that the Miami Dolphins don’t have insurance that will cover them for this injury, should Tua decide to retire from the game. While that is (and should) be the least of their concerns, Tagovailoa will now be watched by all with no small amount of horror and fascination if he decides to continue. As if every last blow could leave a little less Tua behind. Maybe “Tua” was just a pre-existing condition, as much meat as the players end up being treated as.

While the league has worked hard to introduce mitigations like the poorly-adopted Guardian Cap, no amount of padding will completely stop the jarring halt that a brain goes through when it goes from high-speed to no-speed as it rattles around inside a skull. While the league can still keep working hard to reduce the issue, there’s no one sitting around thinking the pox that is head injuries and CTE ever completely goes away.

I sit here and watch football on occasion with my mom, who still hasn’t found that purse. Her memory is slipping away for reasons other than repeated and voluntary blows to the head, which has her fighting this fight a good 50 or 60 years after the football players we see getting laid out game after game. I’m sure that just our tiny viewership and support somehow adds a couple more bucks into the league coffers. With nearly 19 million viewers every week, it’s impossible to imagine the NFL readily abandoning their cash cow, which generated nearly 13 b-b-billion dollars last season, and stands to only grow further from here.

But as Tony Gonzales almost tearily said after Tagovailoa’s most recent concussion, “If that were my son, I’m thinking retirement here.” So many other influential figures have lent their voices in encouraging the same for Tua. Amazingly, the option to literally keep pounding his head against that wall is solely his.

As we go on munching our popcorn and drinking our in-game-commercially-endorsed beer, we get to watch the heart and soul of the game, or maybe just its players, keep getting knocked out. But hey, who needs heart and soul? Maybe it’s just all in their heads.