Dolphins-Bengals Open Discussion Thread

September 29, 2022, 7:14 pm ET

Cincinnati Bengals WR Tyler Boyd

Photo: USA Today Sports Images

NFL Week 4 - The Miami Dolphins (3-0) look to stay undefeated as they travel to Ohio to face the reigning AFC champions, the Cincinnati Bengals (1-2). Use this thread to discuss the game. You can also join Football Outsiders writers and readers on the official Football Outsiders Discord server.

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Comments

38 comments, Last at 30 Sep 2022, 3:49pm

#1 by apocalipstick // Sep 29, 2022 - 8:31pm

The Bengals deserve to lose on the basis of those awful, awful uniforms.

#2 by ImNewAroundThe… // Sep 29, 2022 - 9:07pm

Awesome you mean?

#3 by apocalipstick // Sep 29, 2022 - 9:15pm

No, not really.

#6 by Tutenkharnage // Sep 29, 2022 - 9:53pm

And no one should want to look like the Jets.

#4 by Raiderfan // Sep 29, 2022 - 9:16pm

Announcers are actually pleasant to listen to. No idea who Kirk Herbstreit is—except for Wikipedia— but I find him very good.

#5 by Joe L // Sep 29, 2022 - 9:23pm

IIRC, he called college games for years. I think he even was one of the announcers on the EA NCAA Football video games, when those still existed.

#18 by Vincent Verhei // Sep 30, 2022 - 3:42am

He's been one of the top faces on ESPN's college football broadcasts, both calling games and in the studio, for over 20 years.

#7 by andeux // Sep 29, 2022 - 9:57pm

Anyone still believe that Tua didn't have a concussion last week?

#8 by Aaron Brooks G… // Sep 29, 2022 - 10:11pm

Tua doesn’t remember any concussion.

#15 by OmahaChiefs13 // Sep 30, 2022 - 12:11am

It's entirely possible the following are all true at the same time:

Tua didn't suffer a "full" concussion, or sufficient neurological trauma to fail the protocol as it's currently designed, and thus his clearance was proper under the protocol as it stands today.
Even without a full concussion, he could still have suffered enough neuro trauma to increase his risk of further, more severe trauma until it was healed.
Putting him back on the field (Sunday or tonight, doesn't matter which) didn't give him sufficient time to recover from that "minor" trauma.
Thus Sunday's injury could still have been a major factor in both the likelihood and severity of this injury tonight.

Neurological condition isn't a binary switch where you're either 100% fine, or you're concussed and completely screwed up....there's a spectrum between those two states, and we simply don't know where he really sat along that scale.

What we do know (or can reasonably work out) is that the current protocols...especially the in-game locker room exams....probably detect "completely screwed up" much better than "only partially, but still dangerously, screwed up".

In hindsight, he probably should have sat tonight no matter what the protocol says. Going forward, the protocols themselves (not just the conduct of the neurologist, team, and/or league) should probably be examined and made more comprehensive.

It just isn't as simple as "he was clearly concussed Sunday".

#16 by ahmadrashad // Sep 30, 2022 - 12:20am

But it is possible both injuries were spine-related.

#17 by KnotMe // Sep 30, 2022 - 1:44am

The hand thing made me think spine actually. Seen something similar when a friends got a disk injury. It's possible there could be multiple causes so I hope he's ok either way.

#22 by Noahrk // Sep 30, 2022 - 9:34am

Same. Omaha's comment above is enlightening, but I'm hoping for more clarity from our doctor friends here. It would seem to me that brain and spine injuries are unrelated, but I don't know anything.

#28 by Aaron Brooks G… // Sep 30, 2022 - 11:01am

There's not a sharp transition between the brain and the spinal cord -- you get down into the medulla and the pyramids and the border between spinal cord and brain gets pretty hazy.

#25 by Murphquake // Sep 30, 2022 - 10:06am

the "fencing response" looks awful and is a sign of concussion, but isn't always an indication of severe concussion as i understand it..the idea that he walked out of the hospital later is not inconsistent with previous occurances in boxing, MMA, etc...

#26 by Murphquake // Sep 30, 2022 - 10:07am

turns my stomach to see it though...awful

#33 by Noahrk // Sep 30, 2022 - 11:23am

I think this and a bit of googling answers my question above. The fencing position is a sign of concussion and it's thought to involve the brain stem, which is where the spinal chord connects to the brain, if I understand correctly.

#36 by ahmadrashad // Sep 30, 2022 - 1:17pm

Friend had a broken vertebra and would do the hand thing sometimes. And I'd guess they can pass concussion protocol while having a severely messed-up back. Which gives you hope he can heal it up and have a great career and life.

#9 by lenny65 // Sep 29, 2022 - 10:13pm

Obvious severe head trauma. Seeing his hands and fingers seizing up like that was highly disturbing. And given his injury last week, even more so.

#13 by herewegobrowni… // Sep 29, 2022 - 11:38pm

Unbelievably, he is being discharged from the Cincy hospital tonight, and will be able to travel back with the team.

#10 by Cythammer // Sep 29, 2022 - 10:59pm

Miami's decision-making on fourth down has been terrible. It's made worse by their starting QB being out. They should be pursuing David strategies since Tua's injury.

#11 by Tutenkharnage // Sep 29, 2022 - 11:04pm

Bridgewater’s been the better quarterback tonight.

#12 by Cythammer // Sep 29, 2022 - 11:14pm

It's also been frustrating watching the Bengals ineffectively run the ball with Mixon so many times. Neither coach distinguishing themselves with their decisions tonight.

#14 by Aaron Brooks G… // Sep 29, 2022 - 11:52pm

McDaniel sounds like a stoner realizing for the first time that there are consequences to his actions which affect other people.

He seems very uncomfortable with that.

#19 by Johnny Ocean // Sep 30, 2022 - 8:36am

And it started with Derwin James body slam of Travis Kelce in Week 1 and hopefully ended with the incredibly violent high torque body slam of Tua last night. By not enforcing the rules in place to prevent severe head and neck injuries for players who are engaged in the act of throwing, catching, or being tackled, the NFL risks its reputation and its audience as well as the safety of players. The wresting moves masquerading as a tackle techniques have no place in the NFL and players who violate the rules should be harshly punished and accept full personal liability for the outcome of their actions. Referees who fail to properly call these penalties should be removed from the NFL referee pool for repeated failures to protect players from head and neck injuries.

NFL owners use their monopolistic control of the sport to refuse to fully guarantee player contracts and, at the same time, tolerate a lack of enforcement of rules designed to protect players from severe life altering injuries and possible death. Clean up the unnecessary violence and start enforcing the rules already on the books to prevent head, neck, and spinal injuries during NFL games.

#20 by Mike B. In Va // Sep 30, 2022 - 8:43am

Of course this crap isn't gonna get called, since the refs have one standard for mobile QBs and another one for "pocket" QBs. Brush Brady's helmet or push him the wrong way and get a flag. Hit Jackson in the head when he's in the pocket and nothing.

This was much, much worse than what Milano did on Sunday, and no flag because it was a "tackle".

#21 by Aaron Brooks G… // Sep 30, 2022 - 8:57am

Difficulty: a tackle is a wrestling move.

#23 by Noahrk // Sep 30, 2022 - 9:47am

All tackles may be wrestling moves, but not all wrestling moves are tackles. Regardless of wrestling, I was under the impression that slamming players to the ground was forbidden, QBs or not.

#30 by Aaron Brooks G… // Sep 30, 2022 - 11:03am

a defensive player must not unnecessarily or violently throw him down and land on top of him with all or most of the defender's weight.

The second condition is a required component to be a foul.

#32 by Noahrk // Sep 30, 2022 - 11:19am

That leaves an awful lot of WWE wrestling moves on the table.

#34 by Aaron Brooks G… // Sep 30, 2022 - 11:23am

The price of opening the game up is that the collision speeds and weight mismatches become higher.

#38 by KnotMe // Sep 30, 2022 - 3:49pm

I think all hits that cause a player to leave a game should be reviewed. Not just for fines, but to see if there is any commonality.

Honestly, what you want is players to actively try to avoid injuries over making plays, but the incentives go the other way sadly and it's hard to reverse that wo creating an incentive to fake injuries.

#24 by Murphquake // Sep 30, 2022 - 9:58am

don't see what was wrong with that tackle, looks like the inevitable physics of a large man trying to corral a smaller man who never stops trying to get away...

#27 by Mike B. In Va // Sep 30, 2022 - 10:21am

He didn't need to slam him to the ground like he did, and I've seen roughing called on that kind of tackle before. The core issue, however, is that Tua probably shouldn't have been out there to begin with.

#29 by ChrisS // Sep 30, 2022 - 11:01am

To my eye the whip of the head in air at the start of the tackle looked more violent than the contact with the ground and may have been the primary cause of the injury, but I'm not medically trained. And I would have no problem implementing the Rugby standard that if you lift a player into the air you are responsible for making sure they get to the ground safely.