NFL Week 2 | Buffalo Bills vs. Miami Dolphins | Tua Tagovailoa Concussion Injury | Instant Reaction

all right we're live here check the mic after dark uh the Bills Dolphins game is currently going on as we're live right here but uh bills 31 Dolphins 10 looks like the bills are headed to become two and 0 and perhaps the even bigger story tonight Tu Tunga vioa leaves the game with a concussion of course a massive story given his concussion history Sam so um we could talk bills and their dominance in this game wasn't a great night obviously for the Dolphins both on the field and now sitting here waiting to to hear and just see what happens with Tua in the coming weeks yeah it was already a game obviously that was going badly um from Miami Tua had a couple of interceptions that didn't really look like his fault there were some kind of miscommunications with receivers that aren't normally big parts of this offense Grant Dubose was late looking for the football I think and it clattered him in the shoulder bounces off for an interception the second one was I don't what is his name now Robbie chosen is that what we're going with at the moment yeah Robbie chosen looked like he hooked up as opposed to running a deep out to it threw it to the out interception so the first two looked like miscommunications the third one looked like he just couldn't get the ball off the field and chucked it to a a corner instead so it was already a disastrous night for Miami in terms of this game is going badly you're going to lose um you know a game at home against a division rival and you're getting beat down and then it became an absolute catastrophe when Tua took off in a a drive that they needed a touchdown with got the first down and then instead of sliding kind of launched himself head first into Demar Hamlin I couldn't quite tell if it was the throwing his head into Hamlin or when his head hit the turf but either way the next thing to be that we saw was the fencing response right the classic bad concussion response and that for Tua in particular is just an awful thing to happen um given his concussion history yeah and so he had had previous concussions before 2022 right but it was the 2022 season week three against Buffalo uh falls back on the turf gets up kind of stumbles remember there was a lot of controversy from the NFL saying oh it was back injury and it's like no this looks like a concussion comes back four days later didn't miss any time they had Thursday Night Football gets thrown to the turf against the Cincinnati Bengals on Thursday Night Football head bounces off the turf uh and then later in the season in December similar head hits the turf third concussion of the year that one put him out for the season that third concussion I think it you know because it was three in one season like he wasn't back the the like 30 days later right they were playing in the playoffs against the Buffalo bills in the Wild Card round and he wasn't back by then they were they were saying hey look you're shut down for the year and so three concussions in one year to the point where everybody saying if there's another one is that it for Tua makes it through all of 2023 plays well overall doesn't have any major injuries you know his first year really start to finish with no injuries and here we are in week two another you know bad badl looking concussion against the bills here tonight yeah I mean the problem is he's now entered this sort of realm where they don't know what to do with him you know like the third concussion and this is a third diagnosed concussion by the way which is a distinction worth making because of the way they Miami treated the initial concussions and remember he had that stumbling thing and they're like oh no that's not a concussion that was just loss of balance or whatever so fourth diagnosed concussion now within 2 years and you know this is this has happened in other sports but it hasn't happened much in football where guys will have these lingering concussion effects or excuse me or like concussions that that the the effects last longer because you've had a bunch of them and you're going to hear a ton of people now saying he needs to retire he needs to call a quits he needs to walk away I don't know that that's necessarily true again there have been other sports where guys have dealt with concussions and it's been like a problem for a long time it's lingered and once they've been shut down for a period of time they've been able to come back and concussions haven't been a problem again so it's not necessarily saying oh this is the fourth one in in two years it's time he's done the problem is though I don't know that Miami has any idea now how long they're going to need to put him to shut him down for like is this obviously he's he's out of this game he's probably not going to play the next game even though they have a 10day turnaround because this is Thursday Night Football but how many like how what is the abundance of caution now do you shut him down for two weeks 3 6 8 the season like what is the appropriate time now because eventually like the the chances are in a week or two he's going to be asymptomatic right it's it's not going to be a lingering thing but maybe the most concerning thing about this one is that the hits whether it was hitting dear Hamlin or his head hitting the turf it's always hard to gauge from from tape TV tape but they looked fairly innocuous like this was not like the the Cincinnati hit right where he got launched into the turf by a nose tackle that was fairly obvious that that's going to create a concussion this one it didn't look like the kind of hit that would create you know a bad concussion fencing response thing and yet that might be where he is now because of his previous concussion so I think the the most difficult thing for everybody involved now is the unknown that this is like Uncharted Territory in the NFL yeah I mean look I know you're the son of doctors but neither one of us is an expert in any of this stuff so it's it's not even speculating we I would rather just like we're doing kind of talk through what are the options going forward what's the discussion going to be around because you're right people are going to be saying he should retire I do know right when when you have a lot of concussions you're not necessarily more likely to get the next one but each subsequent one is doing far more damage right and that's where even if he is asymptomatic in a week or two because of so many concussions within a two-year period does that mean you add a month like there there's there's really no uh perfect protocol that says four concussions in two years you know two months two and a half months three months two weeks there there's no specific rules around this other than look he got paid this offseason and you know you get that big guaranteed money and everything I mean so it makes it maybe easier to have that discussion about do you want to go forward and play but you know it's unfortunate because look he wasn't having a great game tonight but he's been an ascending player in the league the last couple years obviously everybody's been concerned about his health and you know had a successful 2023 season and so unfortunate to see this uh tonight um for those just tuning in Joshua in the chat Tua uh left the game third quarter was it uh with a concussion and it uh had that the fencing response as soon as he hit the ground kind of lowered his head a little bit into Demar Hamlin uh the other thing we'll say like Tua spent a lot of time last year talking about learning how to fall learning how to take hits differently because of how many times his headed smacked to the ground this is one where maybe he could have could have slid after he got a first down but um you know lowered his head and um ends up with a concussion here on Thursday Night Football yeah the thing that makes it I think really difficult in the NFL is that because of the season and the 17 games the NFL I think has unique pressures on getting guys back to the game um you know other sports that concussions are involved you can potentially shut a guy down for two or three months and you're not missing the whole season right if you're shutting Tua down for two or three months you're basically saying forget it he's he's done for the year he's we're already like shut him down for 2024 he's coming back in 2025 and okay maybe that's the best thing for everybody involved but that's writing off a it's writing off this season for Miami B it's paying him you know $55 million a year average to do nothing effectively other than recover from his concussion when particularly when you know in three weeks he's probably going to be saying I feel fine I'm ready to go like you have to be willing to do that if that's the approach you want to take and I think in football that is a uniquely challenging thing because the season is so much shorter the number of games is so much less than any of these other sports it's a really difficult thing that the NFL is going to have to Grapple with and for the second time now Tua is the guy that is like forcing that the rubber to meet the road when it comes to these protocols and you know pioneering in a terrible way this like new approach for how they're going to handle all this stuff the last time when he got multiple concussions in a rapid succession clearly it freaked the NFL out because it was the worst case scenario they changed protocols he might be doing it again right now that they're going to have to say Okay X number of concussions in a period of time is going to mandate maybe a long shutdown period and what that's going to look like so just a a disaster for Tua personally a disaster for the Dolphins across the board um and you you know you hate to see concussions being this big of an issue for anybody uh Mitch trabis is in there taking a knee uh bills are going to win it 31-10 uh we did not put the spoiler excuse me in the title this time but obviously talking about the game here uh choke I had some popcorn a little while ago hopefully we don't choke too bad you know how that goes Sam um where do you want to go do you want to talk a little bit more about the game uh someone in the chat asked us to put super Chats on I don't know if you could do that through how we're recording here but hey put on Super Chat if we can um you want to talk about the bills and how they've looked tonight a little bit and then you know we should we should see if we can get an expert to maybe discuss what what happens going forward here for Tua maybe we could maybe we could do that over for the next day or two yeah I mean before we get to the bills we should definitely give them their credit um they were fantastic in this game like Miami in addition to the Tua thing they kind of they we sort of saw the repercussions of their roster right like they are incredibly fast at receiver but they're pretty thin right you've got Jaylen Wadley V Tyreek Hill Odell Beckham is theoretically the third receiver and then after that it's a bunch of guys that are either new in the building or haven't really been parts of this offense those were the guys that t was throwing to for parts of this game and there that's where the mistakes were coming from and then the offensive line right they were down to backups on an already weak-looking offensive line teron Armstead we in Weak two and he's already dealing with you know shoulder injuries that need to be strapped up and he's in and out of the game this is the reality of teron Armstead um he's a great player a fantastic left tackle but he is almost always injured and it's just a case of whether can play all the way through it or whether he's going to be missing time he was out of the game when Tua threw the third interception when he was under pressure very quickly the the the left tackle and the left guard were backups at that point um a quick kind of stunt from the D line got instant pressure and two is running for his life you know that this is the thing like Miami's team the speed is everywhere and maybe they're starting 11 is good but it gets pretty thin pretty quickly when they're forced to go into the bench the other thing that stood out to me Sam over the last couple weeks so you're talking about you've got Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Wadd who's the number three RI River Craycraft has been the guy the last couple years and guys like Braxton beros and it's like we used we'll always in our text chains say they can't find a better number three they can't find someone a little bit more dependable to complement those guys but weeks one and two I I don't know what the numbers are going to look like for Buffalo and what the what the film is actually going to say but I know Jacksonville attacked Miami with man coverage 53% cover one and almost 70% man coverage last week 65% man coverage which sounds unheard of when you have to cover Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Wadd but that's how they did it man with you know two extra Defenders uh lurkin taking away some of the stuff that they like to do it looked like Buffalo was getting physical at the line of scrimmage and trying to take away those guys they they ran into something we won't be able to see Miami's answer to this with Tua at least for a while probably but attacking they're being aggressive against the speed they're not afraid of the speed right now and buffalo was physical Ed Oliver looked like he had a big game they uh Von Miller looks back he had a beautiful sack against Austin Austin Jackson Buffalo looked physical uh they attacked and then physical on both sides really Miami's run fit on the James Cook touchdown I love James Cook he looked fast run fits were horrendous they had they were just missing linebackers in the Gap James Cooks cook uh takes it to the house I mean I thought Miami looked out coached out physical in addition to obviously some of the injuries and of course the Tua situation that you're talking about just a just a bad night overall for Miami and a great night for Buffalo you know showing what they did yeah I mean if M if Tua is down for any extended period of time Miami season is effectively already over um but it so it's sort of you know that's the bigger picture thing but yeah we were talking about you know can Mike McDaniel what's the next um thing that he's going to bring of the season the next cheat code the next way he's going to break the league and it hasn't happened through two weeks actually they've been out coached arguably in both those games you know Mike McDaniel the guy we we think of is at least early in the season always ahead of the game has not been and certainly in this game Buffalo was was the one leading the charge and and out coaching what Miami brought to the table um and yeah the Dolphins have just they've had a bad couple of games even independent of the injuries and now two obviously defining their season but yeah Buffalo looked fantastic James Cook with a great game um Ray Davis looked pretty good when he got carries out of the back or carries as well Von Miller maybe the guy that we thought they might get when they first signed him right this let's bring in Von Miller and he can bring them that that juice for those games that they need him for this was the first sign that he can be back to that player I mean he absolutely destroyed Austin Jackson on a few snaps and we just got through saying Austin Jackson had a great game the week before against Trayvon Walker outside of one play right he'd looked great one of the best games we'd seen from Austin Jackson he's out here like barely able to lay a hand on Von Miller That's How good Miller looked yeah I mean buffalo buffalo coming out of a game where Josh Allen drops back 19 times or throws the ball 19 times and has two carries every time this happens Buffalo's got to be fist pumping saying in in you know division game one of the biggest games of the year on paper and they came out of it with James Cook doing a lot of the work with the receivers I I think you know they they got the ball to Dalton concade early and often uh letting him create yards after the catch they've created what we talked about this offseason Khalil Shakir yards after the catch kin Cade after the catch James Cook Out of the backfield yards after the catch and so they're creating this this offense like they didn't even their outside receivers didn't catch a pass I don't not necessarily alignment wise but the guys that line up outside the most ma Holland Valdez scantling and Keon Coleman no catches this is a middle of the field attacking Bill's team that has cyborg quarterback Josh Allen at any time that can do anything but just a different way of attacking and they came out of the game without Allen having to be superum and won by quite a bit so they have to be feeling pretty good about that yeah I mean we all know that Allen can and has to most of the time be the guy that you know makes everything go for the Buffalo offense but if they can have any kind of game where they don't need him to do that it's an absolute win and even in this game there were a couple plays here or there where he made it look easy but it was still freakish Josh Allen making things happen like at one point Miami Blitz both interior linebackers they had one of them was a free rusher on Josh Allen and he just flicks a pass like bullet absolute laser you know to a guy standing five yards uh like five yards from the line of scrimmage but not many guys make that look easy I mean that's that's not an easy throw but Allen's able to just fire at there all arm and the rush is negated right what would have been a real problem for another quarterback it's not even a factor for Josh Allen he just makes a play look really simple and he had to do that a couple of times in this game but most of it was was not necessary and I think anytime the bills can come out of a game where they didn't need Josh Allen to be Superman it's absolutely a huge win for them absolutely they're feeling they're feeling good about that I think so um we'll take any questions on the way out here appreciate everybody coming in during The Prime Time game again we started it early because of uh you know the blowout and of course two is concussion bills haven't even stretched the surface this is Whopper of their offensive potential and they had their three best defensive players injured Basset kickers their only liability but very much a top three team uh do you agree or disagree Sam bills through two weeks here two and0 well I think yeah largely agree I I do think that not only I I think that that lack of perimeter wide receivers you're talking about like obviously it's not going to be as bad as they're never going to catch a ball but you know they they put up the graphics on the broadcast right that Josh Allen to Stefan Diggs s during the time Diggs was in Buffalo was the leading combination in the NFL in yardage in catches I think and then tied with Mahomes to Kelce in touchdowns so they're literally replacing the most potent quarterback wide receiver combination in the NFL with a collection of guys who did not catch a pass tonight right I think that's a problem overall and maybe in games like this it's not going to matter or long term like they're still going to be good but I do think that that's potentially going to place a cap on how good this offense can be and you know they may be they may have other ways to win and they may need to but I feel like that is a missing string to the bow at the moment that maybe some like against the best teams maybe not against Miami here but down the line maybe not even till January but at some point that's going to raise its head and they're going to need one of those guys to make a play one of yeah Power listener Drake holiday says some team will shut down the bills passing game and beat them in the playoffs um I am it's a power listener power listener power Watcher Drake he's he's here morning night he's always here um look I'm I'm usually a believer of the the weaknesses show up in the playoffs right now I don't think I think this is actually a positive coming out of this game because they they specifically built this team with tight ends and slot receivers to attack the middle I don't know that they can't win on the outside I mean Keon Coleman did have a few nice plays last Sunday against Arizona I don't know I don't know that they can't they're not going to do it at the same level of Stefan digs but a night like tonight they didn't need it and still win by you know three scores with that pick six and everything so that part's encouraging but yeah I I mean I agree at some point Keon Coleman if he can develop Valdez scantling one of these days Gonna Get Behind the D going to have one of those games there was two catches for a buck 20 right and two scores that's in them with four drops that'll happen but you know they they will need that production at some point but for now I think they are doing a nice job of keeping uh defenses off balance yeah safe to say safe to say that not carrying about the interior o line and dline experiment has not worked for Miami I I will say I thought their run defense was was pretty good in week one they gave up a couple big plays but that was a concern for me coming into the season with no Christian Wilkins there no real I mean they bring in Kus Campbell who's almost our age no offense but you know they don't really have those big bodied run Stoppers I think they linebackers just okay uh better against the Run than they are in coverage and yeah they looked they looked overmatched up front tonight yeah I mean they're really missing Christian Wilkins like that was always an interesting decision from a team building standpoint to let him hit free agency and then walk like all the other guys that were good from that kind of draft class from that period is a bunch of those interior guys came into the NFL in a within a couple of year span and Wilkins I think was the only one that got two free agency right the only one that wasn't re-ed by his own team not because he was massively underachieving but Miami just decided n we can spend the money somewhere else and I don't know that that was that smart all right last couple has Omar Khan unlocked a new strategy at signing QBs now you famously made the statement before the year when we were previewing the Steelers you get what you pay for the strategy was you're paying Pennies on the dollar you know just a couple million for Russell Wilson and for Justin field through one week Fields look good you said you get what you pay for Sam are you ready to say hey this strategy is gonna work or you think they're GNA get what they pay for well I said so I mean I said sometimes it start it looks like you get what you pay for like okay okay that's good sometimes I like the strategy to begin with right like I think that they given where they were and the options that they had available to them I think they did very good business they brought in Russell Wilson for literally almost nothing the guy's getting paid less than a million dollars by the Steelers the the Broncos are picking up his Tab and then Justin Fields the trade was very good value for them and they're not paying him that much money so for two options given what they had I think that's outstanding business but I do think that the reality is when you are paying that little for two quarterbacks the chances are they're cheap for a reason um and if that's the case most of the time the outcome of that will not be great so yeah Fields look pretty good week one um but it's not like he lit the world on fire and you know put up 300 yards and four touchdowns and blah blah blah like he was pretty solid um and I think solid enough and his athletic upside is obvious that you go with him again and you know I don't see a point necessarily in going back to Russell Wilson but I haven't yet like looked at fields and gone oh the light switch has come on he's a different guy he's an all proo let's go like he's probably still Justin fields and it's just that that might be good enough for the Steelers this year yeah I mean I think their their strategy it's I if the Giants employed that strategy instead of paying Daniel Jones it's probably a better alternative than paying 40 or 50 million for the guy that's definitely not the guy yeah like if Daniel Jones was getting paid $5 million a year nobody would be bitching about it right you get what you pay for is what you would say yeah uh last thing so we've had two quarter major quarterback injuries so far and major meaning might be a couple weeks I've been wa can you put the TV back on I've been watching that in the reflection this entire I can't I literally can't because I just tossed the remote control six feet away to the couch tossed it can't even can't even get it uh but the major injuries uh Jordan love class of 2020 guys that just got paid Jordan love and Tua every time an injury comes up we bring up the fact that Ryan tanah Hill is probably the uh top available quarterback on the free agent Market is he coming back to the Dolphins here Sam I mean Julian says no well you've got to wonder how Ryan tanah Hill feels about the Miami Dolphins as an organization given how things went for him the first time around from a do they need him point of view maybe um as for whether or not he'd be keen on doing it that's a different question uh you mentioned it before by the way it is worth it is worth saying from a personal point of view for Tua like whether or not this just keeps him out for a few weeks or whether or not this is actually something that threatens his career you have to feel good that he got paid just before this I mean it would be an awful lot worse from him from a personal point of view if this forced him out of the game before he'd gotten the giant payday at least he got his his bag before this concussion hit and and now he has to deal with whatever ramifications come from it well at on this night obviously thinking about Tua um hope he's as as good as he possibly can be as far as the recovery goes here we'll keep an eye on that um we'll see if we can get maybe some further analysis on that from someone that knows a little bit more and what what's what these next few weeks are going to look like appreciate everybody tuning in on a Thursday night here we're doing this after all the Prime Time games check the mic after dark I know not everybody that clicked on this is subscribed to the YouTube channel but we appreciate you getting us over the 10,000 since this morning Morning Show um let's keep it going hit that subscribe button on the way out and we'll see you again on Thursday night we'll be doing this in between the 4 o'clock and four o'clock games in Sunday Night Football check the mic after dark we'll see you again Sunday night