During Sunday afternoon’s game between the Buffalo Bills and the Miami Dolphins, Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa initially left the game with a head injury and appeared to be woozy on the sideline. But somehow, he passed concussion protocol and was able to return to the game. The league and the NFLPA are jointly investigating how exactly this happened, and now we have a timeline about how long that investigation will take.
According to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, the investigation into how Tagovailoa was allowed to return to play will take about one or two weeks. The process will include a review of the film from the event and will also include interviews and conversations with Tagovailoa as well as the team physician and the Unaffiliated Neurotrauma Consultant who allowed Tagovailoa to return to the field.
According to Florio, a player can sometimes be cleared to return to the field if both the team physician and the Unaffiliated Neurotrauma Consultant agree that a player’s gross motor instability is not a result of a neurological issue but an unrelated injury. This could have been the case in Tagovailoa’s situation.
Regardless, Tagovailoa’s injury situation has ignited quite a conversation about the league’s concussion protocol, with one former player highlighting just how easy it is to pass a concussion test despite having an obvious brain injury.