Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa on Wednesday opened up about the concussion that sent him to the hospital during Thursday Night Football late last month.
Speaking with reporters for the first time since the scary incident, Tagovailoa made the startling revelation that he lost consciousness at some point after being spun around and slammed down to the artificial surface at Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati by Bengals defensive tackle Josh Tupou on Sept. 29.
Asked whether he was scared after going down hard and displaying the fencer's pose, Tua said he doesn't remember -- because he blacked out.
"I wouldn't say it was scary for me at the time, because there was a point where I was unconscious, so I couldn't really tell what was going on," he said. "When I did come to and kind of realized what was going on and what was happening, I didn't think of anything long-term or short-term. I was just wondering what happened."
Soon after Tua was stretchered off the field, the Dolphins announced on Twitter that he was conscious and responsive. But judging by Tua's comments on Wednesday, that didn't exactly tell the whole story.
Meanwhile, the 24-year-old former Alabama star is expected to return to the starting lineup in Week 7 after missing each of the Dolphins' last two games, both losses. Without their breakout star quarterback, the Dolphins have fallen back to 3-3, after a hot start marked by Tua's emergence following two disappointing seasons since he was drafted fifth overall in 2020.
Tua said he is focused on getting the ball out of his hand sooner rather than trying to extend broken plays by scrambling in the backfield, thereby hopefully limiting the number of hits he takes.
"Throwing the ball away hasn't been something that I've done in the past really well," he told reporters on Wednesday. "Because I'm trying to make plays, and so just learning from that -- if it's not there, it's OK to throw it away. It's the longevity of me just being able to be the quarterback for this team and not try to make something out of nothing."
In addition to the concussion he suffered in Week 4, Tua appeared to be concussed only four days earlier in the Dolphins' Week 3 win over the division-rival Bills. Buffalo linebacker Matt Milano was flagged for roughing on the play, which resulted in Tua appearing to be out on his feet. The quarterback was cleared to return in that game after being checked out in the locker room, setting off a firestorm over the league's concussion protocols.
Further compounding outrage over the handling of Tua's concussions was that he flew home on the team flight and watched a movie on a personal device just hours after he was hospitalized in Cincinnati.
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