NFL Week 4 -- Pederson wonders what's so special about Philly, anyway

That's a tough ask. When was it inevitable? He clearly thought he could still escape the tackle, then he was quickly whipped to the ground.

 

if tackle is inevitable...

 

It's impossible to overestimate these people. Like one time on a Saturday, a former player killed his girlfriend, then drove to the stadium and shot himself in front of his GM and his former coach. They played the game on Sunday; the team was 1-10 at the time.

I suspect that there is zero chance Tua was at 100 percent health going into Thursday night's game, considering the hit he took on Sunday. If Tom Brady has figured out how to bypass the concussion protocol, as his remarks and his wife's remarks in the past suggest, then the whole thing probably needs an overhaul.

 

The first thing I thought was that Tua did nothing to protect his head on his own. He didn't show any sign of trying to tuck his head on the way down. Same thing the week before. (And yes, that's a blatant example of blaming the victim.)

 

Understanding that it happened very quickly, he could have turned to his side or at least tried to. Or used his arms to break the fall

 

I agree with you regarding the play against the Bills. I think that would have been tougher to do last night, as he was being whipped to the ground rather than falling after being pushed.

If I and many others are right and he was still dealing with a concussion from the Buffalo game last night, his ability to protect himself would have been among the things that was compromised. That is one of the reasons you don't let players with concussions make these decisions for themselves. Their minds are impaired. I'm sure you know all of this. I'm just disgusted by the entire incident. A player could die from a brain injury during a game and I'm not even sure that will get the NFL to make the meaningful changes needed.

 

I think I saw what you saw here too. Before the contact began, he almost seemed nonchalant about the fact that guys around him were trying to kill him. Which led to a much more violent tackle.

 

This is a good point and not irrelevant. It’s the difference in whether the surface has more “give” in it, cushioning, which would lessen to some degree the jostling of the insides of one’s skull.

 

There is a lot of interesting talk here about what happened last night, right or wrong.

I feel this is a good place for this, and I have seen similar sentiments other places on social media and the web, but last night might have ended any chance my sixth grader, who really wants to play tackle football, of playing tackle football.

My wife and I were at my oldest's orchestra concert when it happened. I showed her my Twitter feed going nuts, and she basically said, yeah, that's why he isn't going to play. Can't imagine she is alone in that thought. I am still on the fence, but it is hard to watch that last night and disagree.

That was awful. Talk about legal tackles, this isn't flag football, hard fields, not doing enough to protect himself, whatever (all comments here). He was failed by the NFL and Dolphins. Period. He shouldn't even have been playing. He clearly had a head injury last week, which the Dolphins continue to deny, and played on a freaking Thursday and it happened again. Hopefully he is OK, but that was bad. Period. And it was preventable. For a stupid game.

 

If he had absolutely no pre existing condition, if he suffered no concussions in the last 6 months, would his injuries last night have been any different?