Hypocritical NFL should protect Tua Tagovailoa from himself, bar him from playing

“Dum Spiro Spero.” Translation from Latin: “While I breathe, I hope.”

The NFL can be a strange fruit of an organization.

What it decides to stand on, stand behind and stand against can be complex, confusing, the hyphen between responsible-irresponsible, savvy, capitalistic, hypocritical, conscienceless.

In the latest installment of “As the Shield Turns,” we find Tua Tagovailoa, a once-in-a-generation talent who, when he is playing, healthy, not in concussion protocol, is widely considered one of the best quarterbacks alive. Pay attention to that word “alive.”

In this second-generation CTE era of pro football, three officially diagnosed concussions in two years (plus one neurologically related back injury that not only allowed Tagovailoa to negligently be allowed to return to play in the same game the injury occurred in but also triggered the NFLPA, after firing an independent neurotrauma consultant, to reconstruct concussion-protocol laws as a whole) have dotted Tagovailoa’s journey to this point. Where three times is neither dope nor a charm.

This week, the Acknickulous Tua returns. Back to life, back to his reality. Four games, six weeks removed from the latest head trauma that removed him from the sport. No Guardian Cap, no discussion, no problem. Extra protection, cognitive insurance be damned. Real “competitors” (his words) don’t get down like that. If the Supreme Court and selected states only allowed women to have the same decision-making power with their own situations and bodies.

“I appreciate your concern. I really do,” he said upon his return in response to a question about whether he’d thought about not coming back. “I love this game. And I love it to the death of me. That’s it.”

But that ain’t it. “It” would be the NFL protecting a player from himself, being proactive in making sure on its watch that it will at the very least do its part when it comes to proven at-risk players by making sure that player’s quality of life and life itself don’t end on one of its billion-dollar teams’ grass or turf. And while Tagovailoa’s mind is made up, the life-or-death question steps forward: Why is he even being given a choice?

NFL, take the decision out of his hands. You’ve done it before. What’s the rationale for not doing it now?

If there was ever time for collusive collusion, why should this not be it? Why shouldn’t a league, very much like it did with much intention when it came to making sure Colin Kaepernick never saw an NFL field again, do the same thing to save Tagovailoa from himself?

The same way the league collectively targeted Kaepernick to make it impossible for him to sign with another NFL team, that same collective-banning agreement can — and should — be made when it comes to this situation. The incongruity of deemed league importance vs. deemed player importance. In a league in which no player is greater than the game or the Shield, it’s fascinating to see where the NFL draws its lines.

As much as Tyreek Hill wants Tagovailoa back (“I missed the dude, bro. I missed him so much. S--- was so beautiful; that s--- almost made me cry today, just having him in the lineup, having him call plays, having him direct the offense, like, just hearing his voice.”), as much as his teammates and the roar from the crowd spoke to the celebration of his return just during practice this week, as much as the Dolphins need him back, even with their 11% chance of making the playoffs, there should be some overriding enforcement by the greater power to preserving a quality of life vs. quality of career decision in the same manner that greater power made a stand vs. the kneel decision.

For Tagovailoa, this is bigger, more than just football, even in his way of thinking that football is life. And while football may be life, playing football ain’t. The game as it exists is so much more than just playing it, than just being a part of and connected to the game by what one contributes on the field athletically.

Grayson McCall, the transfer quarterback for North Carolina State, recently called it a career because of his bouts with concussions.

“As I feel like my whole world is being taken from me, I feel some sense of contentment,” he penned on Instagram. “Every time my feet hit the grass, I left every single ounce of myself on that field. I always played my hardest and to the best of my ability because I never knew what play would be my last. I have no regrets throughout my career, and that is something I can be proud of.”

He lived to cognitively write about it.

Give agency. Let’s not act like we haven’t seen the above suggestion be done by NFL owners and let’s not act like this can’t at all be done. In Tagovailoa’s return to football, why that same level of ostracism is not in play should be the question the NFL should be forced to answer.