Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel had no bad news regarding quarterback Tua Tagovailoa's recovery. When asked about his pending return and status, McDaniel said everything is “so far so good” per The Athletic's RJ Kraft.
“Nothing negative so far, but we’re still in the process,” McDaniel said.
Tagovailoa is scheduled for an expert consultation this week. The final stages of the concussion protocol will not be completed until he is removed from the injured reserve. Since IR stints must include a four-game absence and the Dolphins have a Week 6 bye, the earliest Tagovailoa is eligible to return is in Week 8.
Tagovailoa has not played since a Week 2 loss to the Buffalo Bills. He sustained two concussions in 2022, missing five games total, including the Dolphins playoff loss to Buffalo.
The NFL has already made clear they will not intervene or force Tua or the Dolphins decision one way or another, per ESPN's Kevin Seifert.
“Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who has been on injured reserve since Sept. 17 after suffering the third documented concussion of his pro career, is ‘seeing top experts' around the country, NFL chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills told reporters during a conference call,” Seifert outlined in his piece.
“But other than enforcing the concussion protocol it administrates along with the NFL Players Association, Sills said the league will not have a role in determining when — or if — Tagovailoa returns to the field.”
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Dr. Allen Sills continued to add context in Seifert's piece about brain health.
“It's not like we can put in your number of concussions and how long between them and your age and some unusual constant or Avogadro's number that always seemed to be in freshman chemistry somehow and come up with a risk,” Sills explained via ESPN.
“It just doesn't work that way. So what we end up having to do is look at the totality of the patient's experience, how many concussions, the interval between those concussions, some about duration of symptoms after each concussion, and then very much the patient's voice about where they are in their journey, their career, their age and things of that nature. And from that, we try as medical professionals to provide our best guess. But that's really what it is, is a guess at what is someone's future risk of concussion.”
Unless explicitly stated otherwise, it's safe to assume Tua will join the Dolphins as soon as he is eligible. Miami hosts the Arizona Cardinals in Week 8 on Sunday, October 27 at 1:00 p.m. EST.