Beck Water

Yeah, I linked it in a long post I wrote above, but I'm sure plenty TL;DR me so here it is again 1) by Milano standards, Tua got a "love tap": a little shove straight back from a distance while Milano was pulling up; no throwing down or twisting or landing on him. But Tua's head bounced off the turf rather alarmingly for something he saw coming and could have controlled. 2) Tua appeared unsteady getting up, started to jog forward, and fell to his knees. When a teammate helped him up, he appeared "woozy" and was leaning against a teammate If he wasn't evaluated for concussion after that, the system 100% failed him. I could be off base, you tell me, but I'm not sure you can expect highly competitive players to make decisions in their best interest when they're revved up on adrenaline and in the middle of a game, even if they're fully conscious. I had a friend who moonlighted as a doc for the St Louis Blues and told stories - a player with his cheek gashed open, "stitch me up doc, I need to get out there. no pain meds, just do it fast!"

I pretty much agree with the sentiments you express, but when I unpack the details, there's A Lot. The chain of causation started with the evaluation that Tua did NOT have a concussion on Sunday. If it had been diagnosed as a concussion, either during the game or after the game and he'd been placed in the concussion protocol as he should have been, chances are strong he wouldn't have cleared for Thursday night. I think the entire community of former players and media covering football and physicians who watch football was stunned that he wasn't Dx'd with a concussion after Tua got up, fell to his knees, and appeared (to use a technical term) "woozy", leaning against a teammate to stay up. Even if they blew the diagnosis during the game, the concussion protocol is in part, designed for things that are missed during a game to be caught later. It should be noted that the "personal foul" which led to this was about as milquetoast a hit as a player can sustain. Here's a video for reference - Milano just gave Tua a shove straight back, didn't throw him or land on top of him, and Tua fell backwards and clonked his head. This actually was the kind of hit many players sustain multiple times each game. There is a bunch of stuff going around about decorticate posturing vs fencing response and how they correlate with concussion severity, some of it by people whose credentials and professionalism I respect, and all I'll say is this is way way out of my lane. No one seems to think that decorticate posturing (as in Tua's 2022 concussion) isn't an indication of a severe injury, however. IIRC, the doctors responsible for clearing Tua on Sunday in 2022 were fired. Does McDaniel have responsibility? As a coach, he relies on the professional medical judgement of the physicians paid to care for the players (and the independent neurotrauma consultant). I think there's a case to be made for it being a slippery slope for a coach to over-ride medical professionals. On the other hand, everyone who watched that video of Tua after he got up thought it indicated head trauma. So yeah, Mr "I Love You Tua" was complicit and bears responsibility, if not during the game, then for not saying "man, we got to get you thoroughly checked out!" afterwards. Back in 2022, several people made the point that one of the reasons the system doesn't work is because the players are also complicit in "gaming it". They may fudge their baseline testing so it's easier for them to pass, deny symptoms they are having, and so forth. I think Tua's hit in the Bills game was not so minor- his head and neck can be seen to be bent rather severely to the side in some shots, and then he clonked his head on the turf. Either way, the point is, after avoiding concussions last season, here Tua is with another concussion that appears serious, and now what? Tua's whole performance in that game, starting with his first interception, was sus as hell and showed poor decision making from a QB who is normally careful with the ball. This leads me to totally unsubstantiated speculation that Tua may actually have mirrored the sequence of 2022 - he may have sustained a concussion that went undetected on Sunday, interfering with his reactions and decision making and rendering him once again susceptible to a second, more severe concussion on Thursday. If that were the case, then once again the system would have failed Tua.

Well I guess it was when you posted. By the time I tuned in the Rams were being Lambified

O’Sullivan seemed to feel the LB on Samuel shoulda been the go to matchup all along?

I don't disagree with a thing you said about the way the Dolphins handled Tua, but I can not find anything reputable about Tua retiring. A bunch of former players and pundits and a couple doctors saying that he should But nothing from Tua I think he's too smart and too well-advised to make a decision like that this hastily. He'll wait until he's recovered and has had time to mull it over.

What if I told you that Williams played 211 regular season defensive snaps plus 27 in the playoffs last season? I'm not gonna say that's nothing, but over 19 games, that comes out to 12.5 snaps per game. He saw a significant snap % in only one game (vs Giants) He's played almost half what he played last season in just two games this year. So he really doesn't have a lot of tread on his defensive game tires yet. Should add, defensive snaps. Played a bunch on ST as well, but that doesn't teach him to read his keys

What do you recommend that's on now?

I get SF at MINN which in theory could be good - less interesting without CMC Rooting for a Vikings loss of course, nothing against the SKOL!ites

Oh, man! Sucks for the 9ers

To your point, at 6:09 in the video Josh finished the throw hopping on one leg, so you could tell he didn't get the platform he wanted. There was something odd to me about how Samuel ran his route - could you watch it and tell me what he's doing? It's like he slowed to watch a couple times, did he have several windows?

Excellent stuff!

FWIW here's a Bangedup Bills blog post describing, based on the new info and on photo of Bernard in the locker room after the game with no sling, where he believes the tear must be and comparing the timelines of several players when they returned from a partial pectoral tear. https://bangedupbills.com/2024/09/13/investigating-terrel-bernards-pectoral-injury/

Thanks! I will note that Simon expressed that he sees strong blocking out of Keon and believes he has the confidence of the coaches, so maybe Keon is there to block. I think one concern may be limiting what Josh has to do with his left hand somewhat - if he's handing the ball off, there's less chance of Stuff Happening?

Yeah, that's been the reaction of various pundits and even some doctors who have commented, but I actually follow her for stuff about back injury and I would say she has a higher level of expertise and her explanation makes sense to me. Apparently it's a definitive indicator for a concussion (since the neurons don't get stretched without one) but doesn't indicate it's necessarily more severe.

He definitely does

I'm not sure where the right place to put this is, but I found this Youtube piece by a board certified neurosurgeon interesting, and your post seemed like a good place to put it. As to your point, the first question is going to be does Tua heal and recover completely from this concussion? As we know from Mr Bath Mat, Kevin Kolb, there can be permanent effects. Long term decisions have to wait on this first step, recovery. As to your points, they're valid, but I think if Tua recovers and clears protocol, it's really going to be up to Tua. If Tua is kept from playing and suffers financial loss, I would think the doctor would face potential repercussions from preventing his play. Pretty sure the players all sign liability waivers, so being sued might not be a concern. My hope for Tua is that his family and friends and his physicians help him evaluate and make the best decision for him (which I think would be step away). On to the Lady Spine Doc: She explains what causes the "fencing posture" - about 1:25 in. It's all about stretching the neurons in your lateral vestibular nucleus (she goes too fast by the diagram, freeze the video at that point). She says having this spontaneous neuron signaling that causes involuntary contraction doesn't necessarily indicate how serious the concussion is, which I found interesting - evidently it's all about what part of the brain gets hit and whether or not the neurons leading to the lateral vestibular nucleus get stretched Minor point that she (and a number of other commentators on the web) mistakenly say his previous concussions with involuntary contraction were last season, when in fact they were in 2022. Anyway, I thought it was interesting for the info on what causes the fencing posture, why it doesn't necessarily mean that the concussion was more serious, and unlike a number of pundits she's not all "this doesn't mean he can't return to play", though of course she points out the concussions are very concerning for long term brain injury.

I think AJ's wife secretly has Beane's number blocked and silenced.

It's Josh Hines-Allen

So the Dolphins just passed all over the Jags. 23 of 37 for 338 yds. 400 yds offense. On the other side of the ball, the Jags were able to run on the Phins, but their passing game wasn't much. 12 completions for 162 yds. Whether that's on the Dolphins defending the pass well, or whether that's on the Jags not having too much of a passing game, can't tell you at this point. Guess we'll learn more on Sunday. In their H2H meetings so far, Doug Pederson has not been one of the offensive coaches whose number is written on McDermott's office wall.

Even on the first Ingram interception, it was Benford who had the receiver covered with a blanket and forced the deflection that got picked.

I wish you would (write about McDaniel).

I don't think Brady de-prioritized Diggs per se. Diggs was still averaging 8 targets per game. But he was being used more on short passes, from the backfield and behind the LOS where he had to earn yards by YAC. What I think Brady did, was take a deep look at the Cold Hard Football Facts. And that led him to conclude that Diggs simply wasn't winning on those deeper routes, leading to Josh either trying to force him the ball or throwing incompletions. So he tried to put Diggs into a position to be more successful with shorter routes. The other thing I think Brady did, is say (and I think he was correct) "we can not win without a run game because of how teams have adjusted their defensive coverage to us. So by God, we will have a run gane and if it works, we'll keep using it until they prove they can stop it". That wasn't de-prioritizing Diggs per se, but it was effectively de-prioritizing the passing game. And the results spoke for themselves. Edit to add: Diggs first game with the Texans, he had 6 receptions on 6 targets - for 33 yards. Nico Collins had 6 receptions on 8 targets - for 117 yds. This was "business as usual" for Collins who averaged 8 targets and 92 YPG in the 14 games where he wasn't injured or inactive last season. And, the Texans offense had 40 rush attempts to 32 pass attempts. Bobby Slowik, of course, became Texans OC after 4 yrs w/ the 49ers, one of the NFL teams that runs more than 50% of the time. Gonna be interesting to watch from a distance, very interesting. I think Diggs fully intends to be a fantastic teammate and on his very best behavior - but is that gonna last if he's being utilized in a way that keeps him under 50 YPG?

Well, there are a couple of things. First, Diggs wasn't getting 10 receptions per game before Brady became OC. He was averaging 10 targets per game and 87 YPG, though. After Brady took over, he dropped to 8 targets per game - but more than that changed. He was being used on shorter routes and from the slot, averaging 45 YPG. So only 2 fewer targets, but yards almost cut in half. Diggs did not like that, one bit. The fact that the team was now winning, did not make it better in his mind. It wasn't just that drop in the Chiefs game, he fumbled on the very first play of the game and a turnover was only saved by Kincaid alertly batting the ball out of bounds at the cost of a 10 yd penalty. Big momentum killer, and it didn't help when Josh did his "good teammate" thing of targeting Diggs deep on the very next play only to net another incompletion.

| "I don't understand the world today, I don't understand what (he) needed | (We) gave (Diggs) everything, (he) threw it all away on nothin' " | -apologies to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers The biggest puzzle to me of the whole Diggs kerfluffle was listening to a panel discussion including Joe Buscaglia of The Athletic where Joe opined that Diggs was "a much misunderstood dude" and "tremendously self-aware" and deliberate about what he was doing, while he was doing it. Because I don't see how that can possibly be consistent with some of his behavior here. I think of Diggs as the sort of person who starts feeling this almost-unbearable internal discomfort after he's been in a situation for a while if it isn't going entirely as he wants. And he isn't self-aware enough to look in a mirror and say "what is my part in this? what am I doing or have I done that is contributing to this situation and how can I change to change the situation?". Which, to be honest, most of us don't. But if it's not you, or you don't see what part of it is you, then it must be the other guy, or the situation you're in, or both. I also think Diggs trends towards being a narcissist, which goes along with only being concerned with other people for what you get from them. But narcissists can come across as charming and self-aware when you talk to them in situations they control I think Diggs laid it out in the GQ article linked above - he wants to be a HOF WR. He wants targets, he wants yards, and he wants Championships. I think Diggs lost at least some faith in McDermott as the Coach to get him that championship after the 13 seconds game. I think he lost faith in Allen as the QB to take him where he wanted to go partway through the 2022 season. And once that happened, then his internal discomfort is going to build and build and he's going to want out and feel entirely justified.

I went back and looked again, and it's a lower probability than I thought at first. So I can't blame Josh for passing that one I don't agree that it's a "never" though - but I'd agree it's far from a gimme