The retirement calls are increasingly surrounding injured Dolphins star Tua Tagovailoa, but much like the rest of the lengthy injury history for the quarterback, the situation is complicated, and growing more so.

Tagovailoa suffered yet another concussion in the Thursday Night Football season opener against the Bills, following a string of head injuries in the 2022 season that drew national attention and led to changes in the NFL’s concussion protocol. 

That prompted a series of players and coaches, including the Raiders’ Antonio Pierce, to call on Tagovailoa to retire for the sake of his own health and his family.

“It’s not worth it,” Pierce said Friday. “Playing the game, I haven’t witnessed anything like what’s happened to him three times … I just think at some point—he’s going to live longer than he’s going to play football—take care of your family.”

As of Sunday, Tagovailoa is deferring any decision until at least after meeting early this week with neurologists, according to a report from ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Counting his final collegiate season at Alabama, Tagovailoa has now suffered four diagnosed concussions in the last five years, and it’s possible there were additional undiagnosed ones. The meetings with doctors will be to assess both the severity of the latest blow, suffered during the third quarter of the Dolphins’ 31-10 loss to the Bills, and the cumulative effect of all the concussions. 

NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, meanwhile, reported that Tagovailoa will not retire, and added that the meetings with doctors have already started. Tagovailoa is expected to miss at least the Dolphins’ next game, Sept. 22 at the Seahawks, while the evaluations continue, and he remains in the league’s concussion protocol. 

Complex Math

Beyond Tagovailoa’s health, there are significant contractual ramifications within any retirement decision. Just starting a four-year $212.4 million contract extension signed in July, Tagovailoa has $167.1 million of those funds guaranteed, and about $43 million has already been paid. If Tagovailoa is cleared to return to play, but chooses to retire, he forfeits the rest of his money, absent a separate, negotiated settlement. If he is forced to medically retire, he could claim the remaining $124 million in guaranteed money. 

Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel, for his part, implored the media and fans to focus on Tagovailoa’s health, and only that.

“You’re talking about his career. His career is his,” McDaniel said Friday. “I just wish that people would for a second hear what I’m saying, that bringing up his future is not in the best interest of him. So I’m going to plead with everybody that genuinely does care that should be the last thing on your mind.”

When talking about his broadcast future, Tom Brady pointed to blunt golf analyst Johnny Miller as one of his role models. The seven-time Super Bowl champion vowed he wouldn’t shy away from criticizing bad plays—and bad players.

Miller never shied away from criticizing golf stars who screwed up or choked under pressure.  On Sunday, we finally glimpsed the tell-it-like-it-is Tom Brady rather than the milquetoast TV rookie we saw during his disappointing debut.

Along with play-by-play partner Kevin Burkhardt, Brady was more loose, assertive, and entertaining during Fox Sports’ telecast of Cowboys-Saints. I loved his description of the Saints’ dominating scheme against the Cowboys as a “bullyball” and “run through your face” offense. 

More importantly, Brady doled out equal doses of criticism and praise. And he wasn’t afraid to call out stars like Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott for bad football.

My favorite Brady call came in the third quarter with the Saints leading 35-16.  On first down from the Saints 11-yard line, Prescott missed a wide-open Ezekiel Elliott for a likely touchdown. Brady reverted to his meek Week 1 mode, where he seemed to bite his tongue and refrained from he really wanted to say. But when Prescott fumbled on third down, dropping the Cowboys back into field goal territory, Brady rightly blamed Cowboys quarterback.

“Again, Dak loose with that ball. That first-down play ends up coming up to bite him. It doesn’t all come down to third [down]. You got him open, you got to hit him,” Brady said.

Finally! Welcome to NFL television, Tom.

Brady’s learning that if you want to succeed in the broadcast booth, you have to be willing to criticize the players and coaches who used to be your colleagues. Be honest. Tell viewers what you really see and feel—good and bad. Heap all the praise you want on great players, great coaches, and great schemes. But don’t pull your punches to cover somebody. Accept that you’ve gone over to the “dark side” of the media. Your responsibility now is to your viewers; not players and coaches.

Viewers in and out of the business noticed the difference in Brady. “Just like on the football field, it appears that Brady knows how to make quick adjustments and improve,” noted Awful Announcing. Former NFL scout Ollie Connoly had this to say: “I regret to inform you that Tom Brady is offering good, non-cliched insight in doses today. He sounds comfortable and confident and like he may even be enjoying himself. Who knew: the homicidally competitive guy may wind up being good at this.”

Bingo.

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In the NFL’s strong early start to 2024 game viewership, Amazon largely held its own in its season debut. 

The first Thursday Night Football game this season for the online retail and streaming giant, a 31-10 win for the Bills over the Dolphins, drew an average audience of 14.96 million, according to figures released late Friday. Though down by 1% from the TNF 2023 season debut, this was still the third-most-watched game ever for Amazon, and a peak audience of 18.09 million set a new high for the NFL game slot in its current home on Prime Video. 

Though the Buffalo victory was scarcely in doubt by the middle of the second quarter, the game viewership beat Amazon’s 2023 season average of 11.86 million by 26%. The Bills-Dolphins game trails only last year’s opener between the Vikings and Eagles, and a November 2023 contest between the Seahawks and Cowboys in Amazon’s TNF history. 

The audience numbers represent Nielsen data from its own ratings panel. Updated figures that include that data plus measurements from set-top boxes, smart TVs, and other streaming platforms, known as “Big Data + Panel” figures, will be released Monday. Beyond raw numbers, though, Amazon also drew an average age of 46.6 years during the Bills-Dolphins game, more than seven years younger than the NFL’s overall Week 1 average of 54.2 million, continuing a key trend seen throughout last season. Prime Video is now in its third season showing TNF. 

The TNF viewership follows an opening to the 2024 season for the NFL that saw the league post a 12% lift in average game viewership to a Week 1 record of 21 million. Amazon will continue its NFL coverage with the Week 3 opener on Thursday between the Patriots and Jets.

UFC knew it was going to break all sorts of new ground with its high-profile event at the Sphere in Las Vegas, and many of the final results from Saturday night’s UFC 306 confirmed exactly that. 

The event, also known as Riyadh Season Noche UFC, generated $22 million in gate receipts, setting a new record for the mixed-martial-arts entity and breaking a nearly eight-year-old mark of $17.7 million set back in November 2016 with the Conor McGregor-led UFC 205. Additionally, UFC posted a new record for the biggest gate for a single date at the Sphere, and set a new mark for merchandise sales at a single UFC event. 

Beyond raw numbers, though, UFC was also able to successfully stage the first live sporting event at the $2.3 billion Sphere, the James Dolan-controlled technological marvel redefining live entertainment. Dolan, the executive chair and CEO of Sphere Entertainment Co., also leads sister company Madison Square Garden Sports Corp. that owns the Knicks and NHL’s Rangers.

Nearly a year in development, UFC sought to infuse its own well-established brand with the unprecedented technological capabilities of the Sphere, particularly the 160,000-square-foot interior screen. It did so with a $20 million production budget and a central theme of recognizing Mexico’s independence from the Spanish Empire, and celebrating that country’s culture and role in the rise of combat sports. 

“Literally, the whole thing was seamless. It went perfect,” said Dana White, UFC president and CEO, in a post-event press conference. “We didn’t have a lot of time to rehearse—that was our big worry coming in here—but they nailed it. … Tonight was meant to happen. We did it. We killed it.”

Defending bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley lost his belt to challenger Merab Dvalisvhili in the featured fight of UFC 306.