Solomon Thomas is Stanford-educated and routinely works his brain out. Standing in the Jets’ locker room following practice Friday, he listed off everything from eating right to taking vitamins to brain training to spending time in the hyperbaric chamber — all to help combat the life-altering risk he takes stepping onto a football field every Sunday. But if the worst happens, if Thomas or any other player finds himself in the situation in which Tua Tagovailoa found himself this week, he will be at the mercy of a protocol that publicly and dramatically failed the Dolphins quarterback.
NFLPA president J.C. Tretter released a statement Friday afternoon calling for accountability in the wake of Tagovailoa being allowed to play Thursday night. Tagovailoa suffered what likely was a second serious head injury in a five-day span after his head hit the ground following a sack and he was taken to the hospital. Against the Bills last Sunday, Tagovailoa was controversially allowed to return to the game after appearing to suffer a head injury and collapsing on the field. The Dolphins later said that was due to a back injury. Thomas, one of the Jets’ alternate NFLPA representatives, stood behind Tretter’s statement.
Solomon Thomas is one of the Jets’ alternate player representatives. Bill Kostroun/New York Post
Tua Tagovailoa was taken off the field in a stretcher on Thursday night after suffering a concussion.Getty Images“There’s no space for mistakes when it comes to concussions, where it comes to our overall health,” Thomas told The Post. “No-go symptom, there’s no reason after seeing what I saw on Sunday, what I saw replays of the play, there’s no reason he should’ve been allowed back in the game on Sunday. There’s no reason he should’ve been playing in the game Thursday night.
“It’s devastating to see that happen to a player, a fellow NFL player, fellow co-worker. We risk our lives and I mean that literally. We lose years off our lives playing this game. We risk brain injury, we risk high-risk dementia.”
Like everyone else in the NFL, Thomas understands the risks and can accept that it is part of what he signed up for when he chose to play football professionally. But in his mind, that does not excuse a concussion protocol that he said isn’t good enough.
“The doctor does some eye tracking and then you gotta answer some questions,” Thomas said. “Until we get to where we can take tests and see where the brain’s at, levels are at, trauma’s at, there’s not really much else we can do so it’s hard to say there needs to be a better protocol.
“[But] there does need to be a better protocol, because answering four questions and looking at four questions is not enough. And then answering questions on an iPad on a daily basis of the level of your symptoms is not enough. But there does need to be something better. Until we get to a place to where we get to where we can literally track it and see the levels and see the trauma, we need to fight and research for better testing.”
Tagovailoa’s second injury took place during a prime time game, with much of the league tuned in. It has been a topic of conversation in the Jets’ locker room as they prepare to face the Steelers on Sunday.
“We’re athletes, we’re gladiators, whatever, at the end of the day, we’re all human beings,” Thomas said. “And we see someone going through the same grind as us, risking his life like we all are and we see him in pain like that, in a situation like that, it’s unacceptable. At the end of the day, we’re upset.”
