Dolphins’ Mike McDaniel on Tua Tagovailoa injury: ‘We just need to evaluate’ after ‘proper’ concussion tests

Tua Tagovailoa exited the Miami Dolphins‘ Thursday night loss to the Buffalo Bills with a concussion, the quarterback’s third documented head injury since 2022. Some NFL greats have already urged the 26-year-old to retire, citing his long-term health beyond football. Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel, meanwhile, told reporters after the game that Tagovailoa will “drive the ship” of his recovery after further tests.

“Right now … it’s more about getting a proper procedural evaluation [Friday], and taking it one day at a time,” McDaniel said. “The furthest thing from my mind is what is the timeline. We just need to evaluate.”

Tagovailoa was in “good spirits” in the postgame locker room, McDaniel said, despite leaving Thursday’s contest in the third quarter, during which the quarterback’s concussed “fencing” posture evoked images of his previous head injuries. The coach was “just worried about my guy” in the immediate aftermath of the injury, McDaniel said, though he declined to say whether he believes it’d be safe for Tagovailoa to continue playing, given his history of head trauma.

“For me, I’m not worried about anything that’s out of my hands,” he said. “I’m just worried about the human being. He’ll drive the ship when we get the appropriate information. Right now, it’s day-by-day health. … From a medical standpoint, I don’t approach things that I’m far inferior of expertise, I’m just there to support my teammate, like I said. For me to forecast things that I don’t know in my non-field of expertise, I don’t think that’s appropriate.”

As for what Tagovailoa’s loss means to Miami’s season, along with the Dolphins’ blowout defeat at the hands of the Bills, McDaniel struck a more optimistic tone.

“We’ll have plenty of opportunities to really take the sheer frustration and anger out on the way we approach our jobs,” he said. “It’s very much Week 2, and our first division game, and it feels way bigger than that because there’s a lot of history to this matchup, and there was a lot of things that we thought we were gonna take care of that are definitely not taken care of. It’s a gut check for the team early in the season.

“It’s one loss that really cuts deep,” McDaniel continued, “but that can either be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you respond to it. I really believe in the locker room. … And I better believe it, because it’s gonna be a while before it’s gonna be anybody but us believing that.”