Tua Tagoviloa ruled out again; Dolphins Begin by Skylar Thompson

Miami – Dolphin Quarterback Toa Tagoviloa Minnesota coach Mike McDaniel said Wednesday that he will not play Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings, but will return to the training ground for football activities for the first time in nearly two weeks.

Rising midfielder Skylar Thompson He will start his first career on Sunday with Tagoviloa and Teddy Bridgewater in the concussion protocol. The only other Dolphins midfielder is the coaching midfielder Red Scenet; McDaniel said it’s too early to tell if they’ll have to raise him for Sunday’s game.

McDaniel said Tagovailoa has been given clearance by several independent neurologists to resume limited football activities, which would put him in Phase Three of the NFL return-to-participation protocol. This will be Tagovailoa’s first practice since he suffered a concussion in a loss to the Cincinnati Bengals on September 29.

“In these situations, you’re dependent on all the medical advice and what people can do and what we’ve been told is he can go out and do some one-on-one work this week,” McDaniel said. “It’s interesting to everyone just because, you know, we really miss his character. He’s a guy we depend on, not to mention all his play and all that stuff.”

“Now, when I talk about this week and play, I don’t see a scenario – I don’t see it active. I don’t plan on making it play at all.”

There is a “specific scenario” in which Tagovailoa eliminates the concussion protocol this week, but McDaniel said it would be a disservice to both Tagovailoa and the team if he plays with him on Sunday.

“He’s literally done nothing on the football field in two weeks,” McDaniel said. “So, I don’t think that would be fair to the player. That wouldn’t be fair to the team… I don’t feel comfortable putting him in that position.”

Tagoviloa was briefly hospitalized after hitting his head on the grass during the Bengals game, which occurred four days after he hit his head in a similar fashion and tripped on his way back to rally against the Buffalo Bills on September 25. A concussion during the first half of the Bills game but returned to the match after a previously reported back injury was found to have caused the trip.

The NFL Players Association launched a review of the league’s concussion protocol after Tagovailoa’s quick return to the game and eventually exercised its right to fire the unaffiliated neurotrauma counselor (UNC) who performed his initial concussion evaluation. Multiple sources told ESPN that the NFL had deemed the UN leadership to have made “several mistakes” during the operation, including not checking his back during the initial concussion check.

The NFL and the NFL agreed a revised concussion protocol last weekend that included “ataxia” as a “forbidden” symptom – requiring any player with ataxia, defined as “imbalance/stability, motor coordination, or impairment Functional “speech caused by a neurological problem,” is removed from the game and prevented from returning.

The Dolphins were the first team to go through the revised protocol last Sunday in a 40-17 loss to the New York Jets when Bridgewater, who started in place of Tagovailoa, was removed from the bout after a heavy blow in Miami’s first offensive game. An ATC observer in a booth believed he saw Bridgewater display post-injury ataxia and was promptly placed on the concussion protocol. He was not diagnosed with a concussion and had no symptoms during his initial or follow-up examinations.

McDaniel said Bridgewater has not yet resumed football activities as of Wednesday, but will do so during Thursday’s training. Even if he removes the concussion protocol in Sunday’s game, the Dolphins are going ahead with Thompson as a start.

The 2022 seventh-round pick completed 16 of 33 passes for 166 yards and an interception in a Bridgewater relief against the jets. He also lost a crucial confusion in the last quarter of the year that led to the landing gear landing.

McDaniel said he’s confident the rookie will be able to improve after being given the rookie’s workload of training over the course of the week. At the very least, he said Thompson should feel more comfortable just having another midfielder on the sideline with him, as opposed to his debut last week.

“It’s huge because in the quarterback game experience, you’re coached, and there’s a lot of things that happen and you’re taking information from one, two, three voices,” McDaniel said. “But then, when you have a peer who has gone through it and seen it, that translation — it might be one word, it might be a pat on the back. All that support from his teammates is a very huge thing for a player like that… to have On that support from his brother on the sidelines this week.Because he was a lonely side last week.

All Skyler had to talk to was [Dolphins quarterbacks coach Darrell] Bevel and I are great guys, but we’re not that great of conversations.”