The human body is a fragile thing and football wants to destroy it. Let’s start there.
Happy NFL playoffs, everybody!
The 14-team Super Bowl tournament begins next weekend and the most intriguing — and representative — first-round matchup is Miami at Buffalo because it involves a career-threatening scare on each team to verify how dangerous this sport is but also to underline how much plain luck is involved in a team being healthy in just the right places at just the right time.
Sunday’s game in wintry western New York will be less than two weeks after Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest during a game in Cincinnati and nearly died on the field as America watched holding its breath. He is making a blessedly remarkable recovery but that mortal scare shook the league and dare say imbued the Bills with an emotional rallying cry and made Buffalo a team much of the country is now rooting for.
Might Hamlin by then be cleared to attend the game with his doctors’ OK? There or not, his will be a presence only adding to Buffalo’s role as the playoffs’ biggest opening betting favorite at 11 points.
Some of that point spread is that Miami of course has its own medical drama in quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and concussions. He has missed four games and most of another with two diagnosed occurrences of the brain-jarring injury — his status for Sunday at Buffalo yet to be determined but plainly in some doubt.
What happened to Hamlin was clearly life and death. His heart stopped beating.
What Tagovailoa is going through also is life and death stuff, in a way, but at much more gradual speed. He is dealing with the threat of the cumulative effect of concussions. They call it CTE, or “chronic traumatic encephalopathy.” It is a brain condition linked to repeated blows to the head. It tends to gradually get worse over time and can lead to early dementia.
The question of whether Tagovailoa will play next Sunday marches in step with the broader question of whether he should keep playing at all.
The first question will be up to doctors who will clear him from concussion protocol or not, and then coach Mike McDaniel who will judge if Tua is ready to play.
The second question will be up to the young QB and his loved ones as they map out a life after football.
Hamlin and Tagovailoa make Dolphins at Bills the opening playoff game that best and most accurately represents the NFL at its most brutal core, as the sport that in exchange for wealth and fame leaves you in retirement with gnarled hands and a permanent limp. If you’re lucky.
The Dolphins’ best for next week’s biggest upset is that Tagovailoa plays. But McDaniel, to his credit, gives every indication of being a person-before-player coach in decisions such as this.
“I will not even think about any sort of game, whether that’s this year or next year, until he’s fully ready to [play],” the coach said, of Tua, after Sunday’s playoffs-clinching 11-6 home victory over the Jets. “And that comes with a medical clearance. That’s why the procedure is in place. I’ll do what’s best for the human being. [We’ll be] ready for either quarterback against the Bills.”
Rookie Skylar Thompson started vs. the Jets as Miami leaned heavily on its running game. McDaniel said backup Teddy Bridgewater, sidelined by a fractured pinkie finger on his throwing hand, could have played in an emergency if needed.
That suggests to me Bridgewater is likely to be ready (enough) to start at Buffalo if Tagovailoa is not.
The situation is deja vu for Dolfans. When Miami last made the playoffs in 2006, backup QB Matt Moore started (and lost) because Ryan Tannehill was out with an injured knee.
America may be cheering for the Bills Sunday because of Hamlin, but if America prefers the underdog — not just in this game, but in these playoffs —Miami may be your team to adopt.
The Dolphins are tied with the Giants for the longest odds to win the Super Bowl at 60-1, via Caesars Sportsbook. Miami has a 1.4 percent chance to reach the Super Bowl, via ESPN’s Football Power Index; that’s second lowest to Seattle’s 1.1 percent shot.
Three of the 14 playoffs teams could open the postseason without their preferred quarterback.
San Francisco will start out-of-nowhere Brock Purdy — but supports him with the NFL’s No. 1-ranked scoring defense.
Baltimore may or may not have Lamar Jackson available — but has the league’s No. 3-ranked defense.
Miami, if Tagovailoa and Bridgewater are out again, will have a rookie QB backed by Miami’s 24th-ranked defense, and facing a Bills’ D ranked No. 2.
The underdogs don’t get much doggier than Miami, which faces a max-strength playoff gauntlet. If betting odds prove true, if the Fins somehow get past Josh Allen in Buffalo they’d face Joe Burrow in Cincinnati and then Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City for the chance to win the franchise’s first Super Bowl since 1973.
The Dolphins are in the playoffs for only the third time in the past 21 years, but getting there is the easy part...
...compared to winning there.
