Hour 4 - Tua is going to be okay!

Jason and Mike react to Thursday Night Football and Tua Tagovailoa leaving the field on a stretcher with a back/head injury and so much more!

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Episode Transcript

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(00:46):
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The good news tonight to a tongue of iloa, looks
like he's going to be okay, that he's going home.
James evaluated the Cincinnati hospital for head and neck injuries. UH.
He was deemed okay enough to fly home with the
team following a scary injury. During Thursday Night football, the

(01:10):
Dolphins lost to the Cincinnati Bengals to it was slammed
down to the turf and immediately his hands went up
to his face. It was it's called posturing, and it's
evidence of a neurological uh situation that the body is
trying to fight and get past. It was as scary
an injury as you could possibly have seen, and of
course the first thought that everybody had was why is

(01:32):
he playing in the game. He had his head slammed
to the ground against the Bills on Sunday. He got
up after the play and then he stumbled. He couldn't
stand back up. He was allowed to re enter the
game and the Dolphins said this was a back injury.
He was not in concussion protocol, and he comes back
to play tonight. There's a couple of things to get

(01:53):
to on this, and the first is is what's now?
And the next is what's next? And what's now? Part
of it for for me, Mike, is this and I
thought about this as we played back Mike McDaniel, who
talked to the media following the game and said that
they followed concussion, they followed protocol. He was cleared by
an independent investigator evaluator. It's why he was able to

(02:14):
be put back in the game on Sunday against Buffalo
and I I just go back to this. He can
sit there and say he was seen by an independent evaluator,
he was okay to be put back in the game,
and then we can discuss whether the legitimacy of the
back injury. But then he's not in concussion protocol. He's okay.

(02:34):
He's playing on Thursday night. All right, you can tell
me all of that. But no matter what you say
or directions that you followed, it comes down to this.
It should have been an easy call to say to
a slammed his head on Sunday, we still don't know
how he is. We put him back in the game.

(02:56):
Maybe we shouldn't have done that. Now now we're hearing
from people that maybe that where there's a bit of
a backlash on it. Let's take care of to Ah.
Let's play it safe, since we have a quick turnaround
game on Thursday, and it's his life and his football
life and his head we're talking about, and let's sit
him out. It's early in the season, we're two and oh,

(03:18):
everything is fine, We're playing in Cincinnati. It's going to
be a tough game anyway. Why are we doing this?
Let it's that should have been an easy call. No
matter what he went through to say, let's play it safe.
This is to his brain. Let's make sure he's really
okay before we get him out there. He doesn't play
Thursday night, and then he's got another ten days be

(03:39):
able to come back in. It should have been easy
because I want to I want to take the football
stuff into account, Mike, because I understand, Hey, you're two
and oh and you want to win, and you can
be three and o and two is look great the
first couple of weeks and they've been able to move
the ball up and down the field. He's I get that.
I'm not saying that's not part of it, because yeah,
I get to it. But that should have been an
easy call to make. Yeah, okay, we're not going too

(04:00):
we're not staring at the end of our season. We're
two and oh and you know what, Okay, if this
game was Sunday, maybe we could. We could go with two.
If he goes through and he looks good the rest
of the week, but we have to hide how he
doesn't practice during the week, and how many times he
gets to go back and do reps, he can show
that he's great. It would have been so easy and
it was the right thing to say. Let's take care

(04:21):
of him, Let's play it safe. It's a quick turnaround game.
You sit Teddy, two gloves will start. Everything will be fine.
We get you back and don't have to worry about
your position, don't have to worry about not starting anymore.
You've been playing great. You're our guy, and let's go
with Teddy on Thursday night. It should have been easy
to make that call, and they still put him back
out there. That made such an epic fail by the Dolphins. Yeah,

(04:44):
in the moment, it was bizarre. Certainly, as we watched
it unfold, we saw the rationale again, citing the tweet
from game day on Sunday of hey he's out. Uh,
he's listed as questionable with a head injury, Like all right,
so he acknowledged it there, and folks are quick to say, well,
that could just be the guy on social media. It's
like no, no, no, no, no, not not for things

(05:06):
like that. They're not just randomly tweeting out ahead evaluations.
But either way, then you try to sell the backstory.
Independent neurologists, uh, other doctors whatever, They went through protocols
and now we're just asking the responsible questions about the protocols,
the responses and the flow. Yes, they passed him, should

(05:28):
they have That's why the nfl p A is going
to have an investigation. And your point once you're three
and oh, and there's still some question and and we've
got quotes from from teammates saying, no, he was fine
and whatever else and to their thinking, he was fine
and ready to go. Uh. Trying to find the one
in particular that I just had tweeted out here, so

(05:52):
bear with me for a moment um. It was one
of the one of the offensive lineman Connor Williams says
he thinks two of quote completely fine and able to
play coming off Sunday's injury as versus Buffalo, and the
injury Thursday night was a quote freak accident and a
blank situation called the Dolphins medical staff first class, and

(06:13):
that's fine, doesn't mean they can't can't have gotten something wrong.
And this is one where as we talked about last hour,
and we've talked about all night, this is not the
thing to to air on right. You you take the
side of caution on a short week, you got you
got your win on Sunday and again hopefully during the
practice week, and we had the quotes from Tah that

(06:36):
we read off a little bit earlier as well, you know,
kind of acknowledging that there was a protocol, but not
really getting too deep into it. Was that, let's see,
I kind of hit my back and then I got
back up, and that's kind of why I stumbled. My
back kind of locked up on me. But for the
most part, you know, I'm good past whatever concussion protocol

(06:59):
they had, and I don't like the phrasing there, and
and maybe I'm I'm I'm a word smith too much
on it, but it's the yeah, whatever, whatever they kind
of did, I got back in the game. And that's
how it reads, I think to a lot of people,
and certainly to the number of current and former NFL
players who've chimed in since that he got back on
the fields, like, well, you know, he shouldn't have been

(07:19):
out there. This shouldn't have been And so that's what
propels it forward for the p A is they're gonna
get a lot of heat from their members about him
even being on the field for this Thursday game. Gonna
aired on the side of cost and given him two
weeks to get back on the field. I know you
want to sustain momentum being three and oh and being
one of the last two three and oh teams out there.

(07:42):
But after the game, you had the situation you were
in the defense and they were game tonight. That was
the one from the actual game takeaway. I really enjoyed
watching the squad play because given all the plays that
the defense was on the field, Howard left the game again. Uh,
they played with a lot of heart tonight. J and
So from a team perspective, feeling pretty good from the

(08:03):
executives and decision makers, you know, and and what now
to what is next? Right? So? What what is next now?
For for this situation? What is next? What do we
want to see from the NFL. Be sure to catch
live editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike harmon
weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific. The NFL

(08:26):
p A has already said and put out statements, We're
looking into this. This is not right. You know, you
heard Isaac Lowenkron say that to Mari. Smith was sending
messages to Richard Sherman and Ryan Fitzpatrick on the set
of The Thursday Night Game on on the set of
Amazon set and the NFL needs to investigate. And this
is what I'm hoping for because I don't know what
I'm gonna get because the NFL has put out investigations before,

(08:50):
but whenever it's something that doesn't paint the NFL in
a good light. What do we get? We get the
NFL is investigating, and then at the end we get
whatever version they want to put out as these are
our findings, right, Like, go back to the John Gruden investing,
all the hundreds of thousands of thirty eight thousand emails
that came in, and what do we find out? Jon

(09:10):
Gruden isn't a nice guy? Right? We found out he's
a he's a he's a bad guy. Nothing else really
not Nope, nothing else really nothing else, Nope, nothing else,
nothing else, Nope, nothing else, nothing for anybody else, All
of those things. That's what we found out because the
NFL did the investigation and they told us what they
wanted to tell us. What about the Washington commanders? Where
was that? Well, this is what we found. What else? Nope,

(09:32):
not telling you. This is what we found. And we're
giving you the version of what we went through with
our investigation because we want to protect the shield, and
we've seen it from the NFL so many times. And
my hope now is that whatever investigation we get is
not an NFL led investigation where at the end we
hear all the Dolphins followed all the protocols they were

(09:54):
supposed to. It's a it's a difficult situation. Maybe we
get a little bit of a bone where hey, this
guy shouldn't have done this, and so uh he's suspended,
or someone's gonna look, maybe we get a little something,
but I'm hoping it's a clear and and transparent investigation.
Maybe it's to the point where the NFL, UH and
the NFL p A should push for independent investigators alongside

(10:19):
the NFL that aren't uh beholden to Hey, this is
what we're going to to supporting this. We're gonna report
on this. We're we're out here and what we find,
we're going to tell you we saw X, Y and
Z that went on with the Dolphins. And maybe it
is the Dolphins went through all the protocols, right, But
I want the investigation to be that kind of investigation.
I don't want it to be something where it's the

(10:41):
regular NFL is going to go through it and give
us the sanitized version of what they found out, and hey,
here we are because we're three and a half four
weeks later and we've forgotten about it, and two is okay,
and he's getting ready to come back and re under
the Dolphins lineup, and he looks good that we've moved
past this. I'm hoping that that this is for the players,
because your brain is different than any other part of

(11:02):
your body, and I'm hoping that we get this kind
of investigation. But this tells you my confidence in the NFL.
When I can say I don't know what we're gonna get.
I don't know that it's gonna Roger Goodell could promise
an above board investigation and say this is what we've
hired to do it. What did you come up with? Uh,
we'll give you our findings when we finished this in
a few weeks, and everything else just is killed forever

(11:23):
and we never find that out, because that's how it's
gone too many times with NFL investigations into what's going
on with the league. When it's a headline that doesn't
paint them in very flattering light, well that's it. You
find the legal firm that you gotta go three degrees
of separation like oh, yeah, they work for or with
that guy, that guy, that woman, she worked with him.

(11:43):
I mean, think about all the investigations we've had of
the off field transgressions. Go from the ownership side of thing,
or certainly the player's side, that the NFL does whatever
they can to do the rig game. It's in their
best interests going through c B A S, go through
all the different UH discussions that they've had and labor

(12:04):
agreements UH in the past, and that's what they've been
able to get get away with, right We talked about
it all the time with Roger Goodell. Hey, I put
this person in to evaluate. But if we don't like
what she says, guess what, it's coming back to the
iron throne and Roger Goodell gets to decide what he
wants to do. That's what was collectively bargained. Same thing here,

(12:25):
as you've got to make sure that there's more safety
measures and stop gaps in place to make sure you
get an honest evaluation. Because we're talking about long term health.
We're talking about guys on the field. Anybody that watched
what happened to it today, if that didn't affect you
at least a little bit. May check your pulse. Man.

(12:46):
We we use that phrase for positivity in your Timmy
l trumpet lines and whatever else of the the you know,
check that you've got some feels going on here. In
that case, if you weren't scared for that young man
on the football field, then then there's there's something wrong.
And if you think that how this has been handled
over the last four days doesn't at least require a

(13:08):
bitter review other than hey, man, you know that the
guy is a doctor, like no, no, no, that that's
not the point there. There's more to it in terms
of declaring them sound and fit and ready to get
back on a football field. And would stipulate that not everything.
As soon as you take your first snap of a year,
you're never a percent again until three months into the

(13:29):
off season. We know that. But there's a difference between
um sore, I'm slightly injured, I hurt my shoulder, and
to your point earlier, what you're doing with your brain
and your cognitive abilities. Be sure to catch live editions
of The Jason Smith Show with Mike harmon weekdays at
ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific. Hey, what's up, everybody.

(13:51):
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Along with my fellow pro bowler t J. Hudshman's Otta
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(14:14):
life experiences loaded with teachable moments. Listen to Up on
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Jason Smith Show with my best friend Mike Harmon live

(14:37):
from the ti iraq dot com studios. And you know,
it's been a heavy night talking about to uh, this situation,
and it's good that he's okay. Hard to believe he's
flying home after what happens, but it looks confusing to me,
but looks like he's gonna be okay. But let's take
a look at the game here for a couple of
minutes and have some fun because there was some really

(14:58):
good stuff from this aim that that is clearly getting
obliterated by what we saw. Yeah, I know that number one.
But we did have a game and it was a
big deal. And I'll do how great did the Bengals
look in those white unis? Yeah? I want one of
those helmets. All that helmet is fire man? Are you

(15:19):
kidding that helmet? I mean the white unis are great,
but that helmet was unbelievable, and the and the end
zones look great. I kept thinking of Empire strikes back.
I don't know why, Like they were on off and
they were playing football. White coach with the black interior. Yeah, man,
how does that look? In mind? Going back to my

(15:40):
my Kennor figures, is that it's a Star Wars action
figure that I have here still in the package, I
have a picture of Harrison Ford signed by Mark Hamill.
It's worth exactly one and fifty dollars. I think it
was just Mark Hamill's birthday, so happy birthday to It
was a treasure. You know, it's weird because I feel

(16:01):
like we talked about Mark Hamill. Then I'll go through
my Facebook feed and I'll go, oh, here's a here's
a promoted post on Mark Hambell's Facebook how do they know.
I was talking about Mark Hambill. But the other part
of it is this to talk about two who came
out of the game and Teddy two Gloves comes in
and he throws I think the farthest pass of his

(16:22):
life that he completed, that fifty yard or two treat. Yeah,
he was like, this is as far as bombed a
little bit, but he came down with it. You go
get I mean, look at this point Teddy's still got
a bit of a stronger arm than to it and
throw a little bit deeper. He came in and was
pretty good. Yes, he did have the overthrow at the

(16:43):
end on the interception and that wound up killing the
Dolphins when it looked like they could come back and
win this game. But likely now you're gonna be without
two of for a little while. I can't imagine the Dolphins.
Boy would be a lot of guts to say, yeah,
we're gonna put him back in the next game. Um oh,
I have I have a vote of no confidence with
any of that kid me. If they're playing without two
of for a little while, they will be fine. Teddy Bridgewater. Look,

(17:06):
they signed the right back up. Hey, we want a
right handed guy that can't throw the ball more than
ten yards. No. Look, you don't change the offense at all.
Teddy is a guy that whenever he has been put
in a situation like this, he has been able to
succeed in it. So coming in with the weapons that
he has, Yeah, he's gonna be fine throwing it downfield

(17:28):
of Tyree killing Jalen Waddle. Uh, he didn't have any reps.
Hasn't got reps with the ones. He came in tonight
and nearly pulled out the game. Yes, he threw a
rough pass that was overthrown that got picked off. But
outside of that, Teddy Bridgewater played pretty well. He threw
for two hundred yards coming in and two and a
half quarters worth of work. Uh. The Dolphins, if they
play with Teddy for a little while, they will be

(17:48):
just fine until two a tongue of Valoa comes back.
There will be no difference in the team, no difference
in prepping. They will do the same things. You'll hear
that from the team. I'm sure nothing changes. We have
great confidence and Teddy to he's a vets Vet. He'll
be just fine. No, I think it's it's the best
of circumstances. As you can is to have a guy
that is I guess, is this a compliment when you

(18:12):
say you expect that he won't lose you games and
you can argue, I guess that he did today, but
you were down, but you were down in incomeback mode.
So but in general, he's a guy that the turnover
ratio is going to be on the plus side. And
as long as you can get a run game going
and most it look good, had a good burst, had
a couple of runs that he started to break and

(18:35):
you know, one little slip and maybe he's off to
the races. But I think the big thing to take
outside of the sixty four yard UH bombed Tyreek kill
is that he'll finish with ten receptions. So Teddy Bridgewater
was able to find him and make that connection UH
in the short and intermediate game as well. Obviously, Fantasy

(18:55):
owners leave a little salty about Jail and Waddle had
a drop, had some other issues to for thirty nine
on the night, but Jase Edmonds found his way into
the end zone early and Most showed that burst. So
between them, you've got safety valves and a run game
that you can rely on a little bit. So I
think they'll be just fine. Yeah, and plus look at

(19:17):
the division. Well, and the defense played really well. Yeah,
they finished losing fifteen, but they fought and you know,
thirteen points in the in the fourth quarter, including that
late touchdown that helped their their backers cash tickets. But
they played well. Yeah, you had a lot put on
you with losing two in the middle of the game

(19:37):
and on Sunday, Yeah, it was. It was. The Dolphins
really showed a lot of intestinal fort this game. Let's say,
and look at the division. They've already beaten the best
team in the division, maybe the best team in football once.
The Patriots aren't any good. The Jets, who knows they stink?
What do you mean? Who knows who? Well? Because Zach

(19:58):
Wilson's coming back on think great goodness, you know, Zach Wilson.
I'll have to put you in your place tomorrow, Zach L. Wilson,
Stop stop with putting L in everybody's name. Only after
I knows my buddy Ben Maller, this is Fox Jason L.
Smith mateo.