The Cold Calculus of Tua Tagovailoa

Tagovailoa is about to risk an awful lot for an awful little on an awful team.

Tua Tagovailoa is risking his life for a 21.4% chance to reach the playoffs.

A melodramatic intro? Maybe. But Tagovailoa doesn’t suffer ordinary concussions, if such things exist. He suffers on-field motorcycle collisions, the kind that make you wonder if he will be able to walk away from the next one.

If “life” was too strong for you, insert “the health and functionality of his brain” into the lede instead, even though it’s clunkier but means the same thing. 

After Tagovailoa slammed his helmet into Damar Hamlin’s abdomen and crumpled to the turf in the third quarter of a Week 2 loss to the Bills, half the Internet pleaded for him to retire immediately. Half the Internet is like that: quick to (over) react, quicker to forget. Over a month has passed, and while many of us still worry about Tua’s well-being, the trending moment has passed. There are now other things to worry about, like that 1-in-5 chance of clawing into the playoffs as a sixth or seventh seed.

Now, Tagovailoa has been cleared by neurologists: real doctors, not sideline opiate pushers who answer to the head coach. He’s also a grown man. He’s emphatic about his return. I don’t blame him and cannot judge him. Many people take risks, sometimes reckless ones, in pursuit of their livelihoods and passions. Everyone on the field is taking a risk. So is everyone on the freeway. Such risks are described as “calculated.” In other words, they’re a matter of math,

The 21.4% figure comes from Aaron Schatz’s analytics at FTN Network. It takes into account both the Dolphins’ 2-4 record and the fact that they should improve significantly when Tua returns; Schatz outlines the adjustments above the data tables in the link. The Dolphins’ chance to reach the playoffs if Tua were out for the season would have been 3.9%, Schatz told me. 

The Dolphins also have a 3.6% chance to win the AFC East. Their chance of reaching the conference championship game – a reasonable preseason goal for them – stands at 1.4%. So Tagovailoa is returning to the field as soon as medically feasible to preserve a 1.4% chance to do something that might feel substantial and satisfying. Those numbers scream “go back to bed for another month.”

To frame the question another way: if the Dolphins were 1-5 instead of 2-4, lowering their playoff likelihood to around 10%, would Tagovailoa rush back? Would the Dolphins even rush him back? Teams that are out of contention shelve their quarterbacks all the time. Tank for Tua might take on a whole new meaning in such circumstances. I hate the idea that Tua’s well-being now hinges on the fact that the Dolphins squeezed out a win over the Patriots in Week 5 and the Jets are on a losing skid, keeping their playoff window cracked. 

While we’re doing cold calculations, we must pivot from probability to economics.

Tagovailoa signed a huge contract before the season. He has been paid about $42 million of that contract, in the form of a signing bonus. Another $51 million is fully guaranteed: next year’s compensation, basically. There’s $32 million more that is guaranteed against injury, but Tua is no longer “injured.” And $39 million of virtually-guaranteed money (his 2026 salary) becomes fully guaranteed if he is on the Dolphins roster in 2025. 

If playoff odds or the pursuit of happiness weren’t reasons enough for Tagovailoa to return the field at some point, the $72-million difference between playing and retiring was sure to do the trick. But there’s a difference between “eventually” and “looks like you’re out of sick days, kid.”

Tagovailoa said on Monday that he has been symptom-free since the day after his injury on September 12th. Twenty years ago, that means he would have been back on the practice field on September 13th and in the lineup for Week 3. We’re lucky to live in a world where we are asking why he is coming back after just six weeks instead of ripping the soft-bellied goldbricker for taking six weeks to come back. 

Still, I’m not the only one wondering if Tagovailoa is returning too soon. ESPN’s Elizabeth Merrill interviewed some experts in a detailed feature on Tagovailoa on Tuesday. "The biggest question is, does he need a prolonged period of rest?" said Dr. Julian Bailes, who consulted with Tua after his concussions two years ago. "That's Number One, which would mean probably not returning this year.

"If you have three or more concussions in a finite period of time, then that's consideration for pause . . . I'm sure he and his advisers are going to make whatever decision they make, but you have to be concerned."

Would I be less concerned if Tagovailoa were taking the field next season, or even next month, instead of in the next week or two? It sounds like Bailes would be, so I would be too. 

What about if the Dolphins were 4-1? The anxiety would still be there. But a real shot at the Super Bowl tilts the risk-reward axis. I’m doing this in pursuit of a lifelong goal that will validate and immortalize me is a much better rationale for recklessness than I’m doing this to save my coach’s job.

Ah, there’s the compounding variable. The NFL is not trustworthy when it comes to concussions, though it’s much better than it was 20 years ago and only half as bad as dedicated pearl-clutchers make it out to be. The Dolphins seem less trustworthy about most things than the NFL as a whole; I wouldn’t let Stephen Ross walk my dog, much less weigh in on my medical matters. 

And McDaniel? He skated past criticism for blithely tossing Tagovailoa back onto the field in between concussions two years ago, because younger media members dig his play designs and budtender vibe. Two backup quarterbacks have gotten hurt on his watch in Tagovailoa’s absence. His offense has been feeble in ways that cannot be fully blamed on those injuries: not with Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle healthy; not with Malik Willis, Joe Flacco and Marcus Mariota and others keeping their teams competitive off the bench. McDaniel’s job and reputation are in jeopardy.

Tagovailoa is motivated to return ASAP for many reasons. One of them, surely, is because his team needs him. But his team only needs him so desperately because both his backups got hurt and his coach isn’t good enough to win without him. Those sound like excellent reasons not to rush back.

Blessed are those of us who do not have to make lifelong health/career decisions at age 26 with the whole world watching. It’s easier to second-guess Tagovailoa’s choice than to make it, which is remarkable, because the last 1,100 words have illustrated how hard it is to second-guess it.

Tagovailoa and his advisors made the decision they made. He will soon play again. How we feel about watching him will vary viewer-to-viewer and knockdown-to-knockdown. For everyone’s sake, I hope we forget about his concussion susceptibility in a month or two and it becomes ancient history in a year or two. 

But if you ever find yourself in one of those “how good is Tua, really” debates, remember the numbers listed above. Tagovailoa more than quintuples the Dolphins’ chances of reaching the playoffs! Even Tom Brady never had that kind of impact.

Too Deep Housekeeping

Look for some lighter fare in your Inbox on Friday; I felt the need to state my piece on Tagovailoa but have some thoughts and stats on the Packers, Cardinals and Broncos in the queue.

Matt Lombardo and I talked to former Giants running back and collegiate superstar Andre Williams on the Between the Hashmarks podcast. Williams shared some thoughts on the current state of the Giants, Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson (who coached Williams at Boston College) and other topics. You can check out the podcast here at Matt’s Substack or on Apple Podcasts. You know how the attention economy works: “likes,” subscriptions and reviews impress the algorithms which now control our lives, helping independent creative types reach our audiences and, like, eat.

MAILBAG is coming next week! Look for an email about it on Monday; it arrives as a Substack chat invitation. All serious and silly questions will be considered, if not actually answered. I look forward to hearing from you!

Photo from Creative Commons Sharealike.