0:00 Tua Tagovailoa suffers 3rd concussion in NFL
11:15 Tua April 2023 press conference on considering retirement
24:59 Dolphins HC Mike McDaniel on Tua’s concussion
39:44 Bills handle Dolphins 31-10
52:43 Week 2 “Show Me Something”
PFT Live with Mike Florio
Tua Tagovailoa suffers concussion in 3rd Q + Bills roll past Dolphins on TNF (Hour 1)
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All right, hey, football team. That's what you're becoming right here, man. That's important. All three phases factored in this win right here, right? Important. And when we had them on the roads, you did what you had to do, right? You did what you had to do. Our game, man. Our game. You just keep getting better when we get a tie. Play football, that's it. It's right. Nothing else. I love you all. Well, there you are, there you are. That was from the Victor's locker room on Thursday night. The far bigger story that's going to dominate the conversation last night today, and beyond that game, the health and the future of Dolphins quarterback to a talk about Loa. Michael Hawley and I are going to break that down for you the next hour. Programming note hour two today will be the joint megapix podcast, Chris Simpson button and PFTPM, with every game analyzed and projected except last night's game. So with that, I say, good morning. Welcome. Thank you. I had to do this by myself yesterday and it sucked. Although the product wasn't as bad as I thought. The problem is, the problem is when you talk nonstop and you start to get a little parched, like, is there some sound I can throw to? I need to drink a water. So I'll be able to drink some water today when Michael Hawley is talking. I'm very grateful for that. Among other things, but I'm grateful for the fact that I can have some water. I'm glad you get to have some water today, Mike. Good to be here. I should be thanking you. I should be thanking you, too, because I am the morning guy in the house, and what I will generally be doing right now is driving the kids to school and listening to complaints and getting requests for Apple Cash and all kinds of things. So I'm glad to be here. If I can just hide out here for an hour, I'm good. That's awesome. Well, we appreciate you very much doing it. And usually what Sims and I will do is waste about 10 to 15 minutes of everyone's time for our own amusement, talking about anything but football. But this is one of those days where you got 10 pounds of something in a five pound bag. So we're going to start shoveling that 10 pounds right away. And I pivot back to what I mentioned out of the gate. So it happened in the third quarter. The dolphins were trailing the bills, 31 to 10. Miami desperately trying to make something happen, facing forth and short down toward the Buffalo Bills goal line to a toggle by Loa, runs the ball, and does what I constantly harp on for any quarterback. He doesn't slide. He takes a hit. He actually delivers a hit. He knows his history at least to most likely three concussions in 2022, none last year. And in that moment, we saw the fence and posture right away, something we're all sensitive to now. Something at one point, the NFL wasn't nearly sensitive enough to just as case Keenum in 2015, Rams against the Ravens. But everything just changed. It was like a lightning strike, Michael. Everything changed at that moment. And we all were reminded as if we'd ever forgotten that this is a player who has a very specific history of head injuries. Mike, I thought the same thing you did immediately when I saw to a, you know, lower shoulder and try to go through people. And my first thought, and it was ridiculous. My first thought was, oh, I went to it, you know, knowing his history, you know, he can't do that. He can't be that type of player. And as I'm not starting calling myself out, my, wait a minute, it's football. And you can't really do that. I'm trying to come up with all these scenarios where Tua won't have these concussions. I'm thinking about guardian caps and I'm thinking about, hey, just stay in the pocket. Slide there instead of trying to go through the player. And the fact is, and this is why there's so much tension in this conversation with Tua and his family going forward, is you really, it really comes out of this, Mike. Is he going to continue to play football and put himself at risk because that's what playing football does for anybody? And we're especially sensitive to Tua because of his history. Is he going to continue playing football or not? I don't think the NFL is going to come in and say, hey, if you get to five concussions, you are automatically off the field. I don't think the Dolphins are going to do that. I don't think any kind of pressure from players or the media is going to make him do something that he doesn't want to do. It really comes down to Tua deciding if he wants to put himself at risk or if he wants to step away from the game. Simple as that. I'm guessing, I don't know about you. I'm guessing that he'll continue to play. He's not going to step away. I love how you've gotten right to it because last night, and I know it's difficult for the people who are required to react and process in real time. I felt like there wasn't an acknowledgement of exactly what this is. It's an injury that is at the heart of the radar screen of what you signed up for. Joe Burrow talked about that a couple of years ago. It's what we've signed up for. You can pick any profession you want that has any modicum of risk. You know it when you go in and when it happens, you're not surprised. This is exactly what can happen when you play football. And when you have the thing happen that you know can happen that's happened to you before, no one should be surprised by that. And we've seen it before with Tua when the financial stakes were much lower than they are now. And I tried last night to write something that delved into the kind of nuance. Like on one hand, this isn't the time to talk about money. But hey, if folks like Tony Gonzalez are going to be saying he should retire, we need to understand what the bill will be. If you choose to walk away and you're hitting the nail on the head, there's two questions here. Do I choose to walk away if I'm cleared? Or will I never get cleared? And that is, as a practical matter, a $167 million distinction. If he's never cleared, he gets every penny of that injury guarantee. If he's cleared and he says, I've decided this is no longer for me, that's a much different conversation with a much higher price tag. And Mike, I wonder if this came up and if it did and I missed it, that's on me. But I wonder if this was a part of the conversation with Tua, with the negotiation, with the contract they just signed. Is this something that they haggled over for even extra couple of days or couple of weeks trying to figure out? Hey, where are you here? What can we do? What can you do when it comes to concussions? I don't know if that was a part of it, but I'm guessing it wasn't because it goes back to what you just said. It's a part of football. And I was watching it last night and I remember the conversation I had with Michael Irvin years ago. It was probably like five years ago. And I said, Michael, if you knew then what you know now about head injuries. I mean, you played in the 1990s, primarily in the late 80s, 1990s, and we weren't talking about this stuff then. The NFL wasn't talking about it well into the 21st century. It took a while for people to get on board, but I said to Irvin, I said, if you knew then what you know now about head injuries, would it change your career? You know what he said? He said, I resent the question. I said, what do you mean? He said, I resent the question. He said, I may have a shorter life, but it's a better life. So football has done so much for me. It's done a lot for my family. It has allowed me to do things that I never would have done before. And so if there's risk attached to that, if I don't live as long as somebody else who didn't play football, I've had a great life. And it sounds to us, like I don't like getting hit. I don't like getting hit at all. So it sounds to us, but what are you talking about? But I would guess, Mike, that most professional football players feel that way. Most of them feel that, hey, this is what I signed up for, and I know as long as I have the information going in, what can happen, I'm good. The problem is, if you hide the information from me, and then I go out there and I didn't know, maybe that's a different conversation. But I think a lot of guys feel the same way Michael Urban does. We know I'll go back 14 years to when the concussion class action was raging in the court system and ultimately was settled. One of the biggest potential weaknesses for the plaintiffs was, if you get a guy in a witness stand who played in the NFL, and he testifies truthfully, and you ask him, if you had known all this stuff that you claim we hid from you, would you have not played football? The truthful answer would be the Michael Urban answer for the vast majority of those players. They still would have played, and I think at some level folks realized, because I remember my dad used to take me to boxing all the time when I was a kid, and he'd talk about guys becoming punch drunk. I think we all had a visceral notion that it's not good for the human body to be doing what football players do for our amusement and entertainment. So, I don't think anybody was really surprised when CTE was diagnosed, and the concussion epiphany happened October of 2009 for the NFL at the direct urging of Congress. But I think a lot of guys from the old days who didn't know, wouldn't know, weren't told that weird mild traumatic brain injury committee the NFL had that persisted for 15 years in delaying the reckoning, they still would have played. And that brings us back to a cause no one can say, he doesn't know the risk, no one can say that there's anything that's been hidden from him. This is at least number four, because the back injury, the back, that was a concussion. This is four in less than two years. What do you do? And before we address that, Michael, to himself talked about that two years ago with Maria Taylor for Football Night in America after he was in the process of recovering from that horrific Thursday night in Cincinnati incident where he was taken via ambulance directly to a hospital. Here's what he said about whether he would retire from the game. Yeah, I think I considered it, you know, for a time, having sat down with my family, having sat down with my wife and having those kind of conversations. But really, it would be hard for me to walk away from this game with how old I am with, I mean, with my son. I always dreamed of growing, you know, playing as long as I could to where my son knew exactly what he was watching his dad do. And, yeah, I mean, it's my health, it's my body, you know, and I feel like this is what's best for me and my family. So, I mean, I love the game of football. If I didn't, I would have quit a long time. Okay, horrible job by me on the throw, that was not an NBC football night in America interview with two talking about low that was a press conference after the dust settled on his 2022 season which culminated in the Christmas Day concussion that nobody knew about when it happened. It was diagnosed the next day because he was off and they're like, it's too okay, we should check him with Maria during the season he talked about in a roundabout way the pressure he might have been getting to his parents wanted to keep playing. Does his family wanted to keep playing and there was a way that he answered the major thing. Maybe they're starting to start to have that conversation, but, you know, when you listen to him, Michael, at the end of the day, the only way he's not going to play is if someone with a hell of a lot of sway talks him out of it. And I think that's already happened, Mike. He told Dan Levittar that his mother, his mother asked him to retire. He had a conversation with her last year, I guess it was, and hey, listen to mom, always listen to mom, but ultimately he gave me the answer right there at that press conference. That's the answer that most people in his position and his profession will give. I'm in my 20s. I love football. I've been playing football since I was five or six years old. This is a great game. I can't imagine stepping away from it. And look, it seems a little crass to bring up, but Mike, you're right. You had to write instincts last night when you were thinking about the financial part of it. Not only his passion, this is his business, and it's a lot of money. So it's easy for us to sit here and say, well, why doesn't he walk away? Well, if he walks away and you give the distinction, he walks away. He's cleared and he walks away from it. He's walking away from the game and he's walking away from a lot of money. I just don't know if a lot of people would do that even knowing the risk. It's not thousands of dollars. It's millions of dollars. So it's really a complex decision. And if he did walk away, if he did all the things that Tony Gonzalez mentioned it last night, and others who have floated it out there, if he did that, I think that would be shocking. I think we'd all be stunned if he actually did it. Only one player that I can think of did that. And that was Chris Borland, the linebacker from Ohio State after one year in the NFL. He was with the 49ers and he retired. And I remember there were some in the media that were trying to basically speak into existence. It'd be a mass exodus from football because Chris Borland was the first one to go. He'd be the pied piper to get people to wake up and walk away, and it never happened. And I can't think of anyone, Michael, and this is a distinction. Has there been a player who has had that last concussion? And that was it. No more clearance to play. The only guy I can think of that would have come even close to that is Javed Best. First round pick of the lines in 2010, he had horrible concussion history at Cal. And there was a moment that looked fairly innocuous against the 49ers. It was the Jim Harbaugh, Jim Schwartz, meet me at midfield game. During that game, Javed Best came down on his head. And it wasn't, you know, we were in the process of evolving away from all the big hits that would become VHS tapes that the NFL would sell to just fairly innocuous things that would leave guys can cost. His head hit the ground and we never saw him again playing football. That was it. He may be the only one that ever got to the point where the doctors just said, "I'm not signing my name to this piece of paper allowing you to play." And that is, as I said earlier, the $167 million question. Because if the doctors clear him and he says, "I retire," all that money's gone. And if the dolphins want to be jerks, if they want to go letter of the contract, he's got to pay back almost all of his $42 million signing bonus if he retires. If he's cleared to play, if he's not cleared to play, then he keeps every penny. And look, it's reality in the National Football League. This is a business. They're not going to want to hand the guy $167 million to never play again if he chooses not to play, if he's being cleared to play. Back to your original point. This is the risk they assume. This is what they sign up for. And when he signed that contract several weeks back, that's what he's signing up for again. He's renewing his vows with this thing that he knows will likely at any given play. Every given play has the risk that he's going to have another concussion. And when he's cleared, guess what? Same thing. Every play, risk of a concussion. And I got to say, Mike, I feel for him because he's aware of it. The training that he's done, he talked about bulking up and doing jujitsu. And he's heard players talk about this before as if they can do something to prevent injuries. And for a while, we all kind of believed it. I live in New England and Boston, so I've heard Tom Brady in the TB12 method for years now. It's a shock that I'm not indoctrinated now with the TB12 method I heard him talk about it so much. But he used to talk about this. He'd look at injuries in a league and he would come back and say, "Well, I don't get injured like that now because I know how to fall. I practice falling and I practice all these things." And it's really a dangerous field to go into a dangerous slope because you're suggesting that some of these things can be prevented. And for a jujitsu is not going to prevent it. A guardian cap is not going to prevent it. It might make you feel safer. It might make you a little bit safer. But think about the concussions of Tuwa, and I'm glad you made the distinction of diagnosed. Diagnosed concussions. The ones that we know about. The one last night was different than the one on national TV where he slammed down. So one, he's running out of the pocket and trying to run by somebody. One, he's being sacked and being thrown down. So you can't really practice the situations. You don't know what's going to happen. Sometimes a concussion happens and we know enough about this now since we've studied it and heard about it. Sometimes it doesn't even appear to be a big deal and it is. So I just wonder what the conversation or what the thought process is for Tuwa this morning as he thinks about another one. Another one that we know about. And he's the only one who knows how many he's actually had. And, you know, you make a great point too. Last night's wasn't some devastating blow to the head. It looked like a fairly innocuous normal play. I don't advocate it for quarterbacks. And I don't know how aggressively their coach to slide in that situation. If you're a competitor, if you're trying to give your team a spark, you're down 31 to 10 week two. It's a game that carries a lot of significance because if you lose to the bills, you have to go play them in Buffalo in early November. They sweep you. Good luck winning the division when you have to make up three games to a team that has swept you. So I can understand how that energy takes over. And yeah, you know, you probably should get down once you've gotten the first down because the blade of grass he was fighting for then was not the goal line. And it was not the first down line. It was just a little bit extra beyond the first down that he had gained. So in theory, he should have gotten down. But he delivered what was a fairly routine football hit. It wasn't anything that would have made anyone say, Oh my gosh. But it was the reaction, the fencing posture that we are far more sensitive to now than we were back when it happened in case Keenum and the league let him keep playing without even an evaluation on the sideline. So kudos to the league for coming out of the dark ages on these things. But it's not the kind of thing we see guys get hit like that all the time. And I think that's what changes this. It wasn't getting whipsawed down to the ground by the Bengals defensive lineman and having his head violently snap against the turf. This was something that we see constantly. And then uh oh, and you throw in the history and all in that moment, it was just like last year was a hard reset. And we forgot. He played 17 games. And hey, I guess the jujitsu is working. He knows how to fall now. Hey, he's passed this. And the Dolphins clearly thought he was. They wouldn't have given him the contract that has so much money and injury guarantees. And it was it's that one moment. And it's like it happens and we're stunned. But then the next feeling is, well, how we should have known this. How are we surprised? We're surprised. And that was my experience. I go from being surprised to telling myself, well, why the hell are you surprised? This is the one guy that would have been the most likely to be in this situation. Dietz and Watson's been making meats and cheeses the right way since forever. 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With the $5 meal deal at McDonald's, you pick a McDouble or a McChicken, then get a small fry, a small drink, and a four-piece McNuggets. That's a lot of McDonald's for not a lot of money. Price and participation may vary for a limited time only. Yeah, and Mike, a few years ago, I was talking to, you know, here in Boston, BU, works closely, you know, that's where a lot of the CTE research happens. And there's something called the Concussion Legacy Foundation, so there are a lot of speakers who come through Boston and talk about some of the risks and some of the things that aren't talked about prominently with concussions. And this is one of those things where they tell you the signs, and we all know about fencing now, we didn't talk about it that much, even 5 and 10 years ago. But also, once it happens to you, once you just get in that circle of getting concussions, how it's more likely to happen again and again. And there's no guarantee that that next one won't be bigger or cause more problems. So, it's there. The research is there. We know about the risk of concussions. And we, as you said, we know about what this sport is. In that moment, you run that clip and you have Tua lowering his shoulder, and who's meeting him there? Damar Hamlin. So, yeah, Tua and Damar Hamlin, what a split screen. What a story. I mean, you can look at it either way. If you want to look at it positively, what a story of redemption. What a story. What a comeback story. We have Tua who's had a concussion history, and Damar Hamlin, you know, cardiac arrest on the field, and they're back playing football on Thursday night. It's great. Or you can say, that's a cautionary tale. That collision right there. Damar Hamlin, Tua Tungavailoa, this is football, and we sit back and we enjoy it and we're entertained by it, but we must know that things can happen, because we've seen it with these two players and many others. And Michael, the similarity as well with the hit, the hit that Damar Hamlin received, helmet to that chest area, that caused, they never completely and thoroughly and specifically diagnosed that they eliminated all other causes, Komodio Cortis, that thing that has caused youth baseball players throughout the country to die over the years by taking the line drive to the chest or your heart stops beating, and the whole experience was very beneficial to awareness, presence of AEDs, that was a godsend. But it was the same kind of hit. The one that was absorbed by Hamlin, the one that was delivered by Tua Tungavailoa, and that's the kind of hit that we see all the time. And that's at the core of what football is. You can't eliminate that risk from the game, because that risk is so central. One guy hits another guy, and he's wearing a helmet. And the helmet might be involved in the hit, and the helmet might hit the player in the chest. The player who gets hit could be injured, the player who delivers the hit could be injured, and that's exactly what we saw. Let's hear a little bit from Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel, because obviously reporters had the kind of questions that we all have. When we leave back, should he stop playing, etc. Here's some of what Mike McDaniel said when he updated reporters after last night's game on the status of Tua Tungavailoa. Right now, I'm not really, it's more about getting a proper procedural evaluation tomorrow and taking it one day at a time. The furthest thing from my mind is what is the timeline. I want to know, we just need to evaluate and just worry about my teammate and like the rest of the guys are. But we'll get more information tomorrow and then take it day by day from there. I'm not worried about anything that's out of my hands in terms of, I'm just worried about the human being, and he'll drive the ship when we get the appropriate information, but it's day by day health is what, you know, really try to approach all the stuff that way, particularly with concussions. I agree with everything Michael Daniel said, however, Tua isn't the only person with the hands on the wheel of the ship, the doctors are the ones who will decide first and foremost whether he is cleared to play. Then, once he is cleared to play, he decides, do I keep playing? That's the distinction that I don't think we can overemphasize, because I think a lot of people just think it's a very simple Tua decides whether to retire or not. Before we even get to that point, Dr. has to decide you can play, and if Dr. decides you can play, that's when the decision becomes one that has nine figures of financial ramifications for Tua talking about Loa, which weren't there the last time that he processed this. That's the big difference. He's been down this path before in deciding to keep playing football. This is the first time he's going down that path. With $167 million riding on the decision that he makes. And Mike, when you brought up Javed Best earlier, you brought up Chris Borland, that was a different, that was a different financial model for the league. That was before salary cap was rising, I mean, just exponential numbers, just numbers that we can't even imagine. And for everybody. So, I really can't think of a player who's been in this position, who's had so much financially to lose with this decision. Now I go back to, you know, Roger Stalba. Roger Stalba had many concussions, but we're talking about late 70s, early 80s, we didn't talk about it the same way. The money certainly wasn't, it wasn't even free agency and football, it was just a different league altogether. And he eventually stopped. I mean, what was the number for Stalba? I mean, I always talked about it, a dozen, and a lot of concussions that he had. Troy Aikman, at the end of his career, Steve Young. But that's at the end, that's late 90s, early, very early 2000s. Just a different story. Here we are, with a quarterback league, quarterback, your average quarterbacks, average guys, making $40, $45 million a year, or slightly above average. That's a lot of money, a lot of guarantees. I just wonder, you know, what he'll do in this situation with options to it. And then, I know it's crazy, but does the league do anything? Is this the next, is this the next layer of defensive players saying, "Oh, here we go again, we can't do anything with quarterbacks." Does it really get to the point where the quarterback is the guy in the red jersey, and you can't touch him? If you get into a perimeter, and I don't want to see this, by the way, I don't want to see this in football. I'm just wondering, from a league perspective, do they do something where you can't touch the quarterback, and the quarterback is going to hit when you get close to it. If he gets out of the pocket, he must slide, or something. I don't know how it would work, but I do know the league looks at this, and they don't like this conversation. They don't like that. They're back in the spotlight. So I wonder if this is the next layer of some type of quarterback protection, and we call it the "To a Tungavailoa Rule." That's an excellent point, and one thing the league has been doing in recent years, which would counter what we would think their natural interests would be, they've been adamant about the fact that once you choose to become a runner, all bets are off. We've seen so many of these plays along the sideline where it's a clean hit, but because it's 15 for the Kansas City Chiefs, outcomes of the flag, we see that all the time. We see quarterbacks, and I've seen quarterbacks manipulating that, slowing down, acting like they're going out of bounds, and the defender slows down, and they go for another 10 yards. The league has moved away from that. When you choose, and that's what this was, to a chose to become a runner, you have the same protections, i.e. not many at all, that a running back has. So I think that if the league does anything, here's where I thought you were going, I thought the league maybe, maybe make some calls about, are we sure we're going to clear this guy? Are we sure he should ever be on the field again? Are we sure, maybe we should just, you know, wait until after the season to make a decision? And I don't want to be that cynical, but I know how this world works. And when you have a guy who, and you think of how intensely he became the focal point of concussions two years ago, and last year because he didn't have any, he's one of the few quarterbacks to start every game of the year, we forgot about it. Now all of a sudden it's back. And now he's right back there. And if you're the league, you don't want that. You don't want. And so let's, you know, are we sure we should clear him? And I don't know how it's articulated. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's just a series of knowing glances. But I think they understand, hmm, maybe we don't want to have to have another concussion this year. So maybe he doesn't get cleared, you know, until after this year. And that scenario, Mike, if I'm to a, and I want to keep playing, I'm going to call my turn. I know an attorney, Mike Florio. Call my attorney. I had no longer have a license. It's been revoked. It's been torn up. It's been shredded and burned. That's right. Get out of here. Get out of here. But I can see him taking a legal route, which a lot of players would do. Wait a minute. You're telling me what to do? As he said in that press conference clip, it's my health. It's my body. It's my life. It's my career, my choice. You're telling me that I can't do this. You're going to make this is going to be a park avenue decision about my career. How can you say that? This is the risk. I know it's football. This is what I want to do. I've been cleared by doctors. And he would find it. We know how this is. You could go shopping around to find a doctor who tells you exactly what you need to hear, because everybody doesn't see it the same way. So there's some NFL doctors or league approved doctors who might say, no, it's not happening. And he finds somebody finds someone there in Miami or anywhere else in the country, New York, Chicago, who can clear them to play football. He's fine to play football, and he's back at it. So I don't think the league could do it. I don't really know what the league can do, Mike. And even the scenario that I painted with, you can't touch the quarterbacks. Well, that's a 1985 solution, not 2024. Think about Jaden Daniels. Think about Lamar Jackson. Even Patrick Mahomes with some great running ability at time and a key moment. How do you do that? The quarterbacks are runner, but I can't touch him because he's a quarterback. It's really hard to kind of legislate this situation. It really comes down to what Tua decides to do. You touched on something, I don't want to pull that thread a little bit more and then we need to take our first break of the hour. I could envision a scenario where the NFL and/or the Dolphins come down on the side of Tua isn't cleared, and then Tua does fight it. And there are legal apparatuses available within the collective bargaining agreement that would allow it to culminate in a hearing, and maybe the decision is Tua's found a doctor. It's Tua's decision. Tua knows the risks. That exercise could have a beneficial cleansing effect for the NFL. Hey, we tried. He won. He's allowed to keep playing. He's fully and completely and totally responsible for anything that happens because we tried to protect him from himself, and he fought us, and he won. Just so everybody knows that. And I think that that gives the league a layer of legal and moral cover in the event that it happens again, and it happens again. And it eventually goes beyond the point at which it compromises its short-term and long-term health. Yeah, that's, yeah, that'd be tough. That'd be tough. That'd be tough for the league to even do it. I think the league is hopeful that it won't even have to get into all of that, because it just keeps the story in the news even more. But it turns into a personal Tua-Tungavailoa decision. Now, the big bad NFL is trying to keep Tua from getting his money and pursuing his career. I think they are just hopeful that it resolves itself. And you can keep hoping because it's not going to resolve itself. It's going to be, my guess, Mike, is going to get uncomfortable. It's going to get uncomfortable before a resolution. It might be intense moments, whether that's, yeah, Dolphins versus Tua, NFL versus Tua, something, it might get a little ugly before we figure out what's going to happen next. I think it would be a fascinating exercise in where public opinion, fans, media would come down in a fight like that. League team trying to protect player from himself. Players saying, "How dare you? How dare you? This is my choice. I know the risks. I'm willing to accept the risks." We'll see. And it may go that way, because Tua's attitude very well may be, "I am not walking away." Period. All right, we need to walk away just for a minute or two. When we return, we'll go back to the game. There isn't much to talk about, given what the Bills did to Dolphins last night, even before the Tua injury happened. But we'll say what needs to be said about the Bills' domination of the Miami Dolphins when TFT Live continues right after this. Draftking Sportsbook is the place to bet touchdowns and new customers can bet $5 and get $250 in bonus bets, instantly plus get one month of benefit plus premium. Download the app and use promo code DFT Live when you're signed up, as always. Please bet responsibly. Okay, last night, the game itself. I felt bad for the folks on the Amazon Prime Post game show, because on one hand, you're trying to celebrate the Bills. On the other hand, you got this serious news issue, and it was a strange dichotomy to say the least. But the Bills got to win a huge win. Just four days after coming from behind to beat a Cardinals team that many thought they would dominate, the Bills go to a place where they knew the stakes, the Dolphins knew the stakes, even though it's only week two, huge game. And the Bills were very opportunistic. They took advantage of the opportunities they got via short fields thanks to three Tua Tonga Bailoa interceptions. The dagger came with the pick six after, you know, the Bills were held in the third quarter. And now it can get interesting at 24/10, just like that, at 31/10, and it felt like it was over at that point. Alright, Florio, I told you before the show that always text Sims when you guys are on the air. I'm always talking to Sims. I don't know if I texted him yesterday. When did you make your picks? I think he picked Miami. Did he pick Miami to win a game? He did. He did. I did not. Okay. This is my, I know you didn't. This is my text to Chris Sims. What are you thinking? I mean, what are you doing? Look, my yesterday was as predictable as the sun in Miami. I mean, come on. It's, it's really not a contest between the Bills. I'm going to go. I'm going to take it a little further. It's not a contest between the Bills and anybody else in the AFC East. I think they're clearly the class of the division. Now they've won 12 of their last 13 against Miami. It's just a, it's just a bad matchup for Miami. And I think they are physically overwhelmed by Buffalo most of the time. But I think psychologically, you say it's only week two, but if you're Miami, this is a continuation. All those guys who have been there before, this is a continuation of previous beatdowns, the hands of the Buffalo Bills. They just know how to approach the Dolphins, whether the Dolphins are coached by Brian Flores or Mike McDaniel. It doesn't matter. It's a, it's, this is their division. This is their division. And as Sean McDermott said in that clip that we played off the top, this was their game. It's always their game when they played them out in the Miami Dolphins. And, and when I think about it, it makes a lot of sense because if you look at, if you look at the most important people in the division, excuse me, in an organization, look at the AFC East, Buffalo clearly has the best combo of important people. So, head coach, general manager, the Jets have Robert Salah and Joe Douglas, Patriots have Gerard Mayo and Elliott Wolf, the Dolphins have Mike McDaniel and Chris Greer. And Buffalo has Sean McDermott, therefore a long time, along with Brandon Bean, not to mention they got the best quarterback in the division. So if you really just break that longevity, performance, playoff victories, and I know Buffalo was seen as a national, like nationally they're a little disappointing. Maybe their window is closed. I don't know. In the division, there's no disappointment. There's no doubt in my mind. I think they win the division again. And I think the next time they play Miami, I think they win that game as well. And Michael, I think the perception was the defense isn't as good as it needs to be. Well, it looks pretty good with a healthy bond Miller and Gregory Russo on the verge of becoming a superstar. And yeah, they had guys leave on the back end, but sometimes those guys leave because it's time. And they move forward with guys that they know they can reload with it. The defense looks pretty good. And all the consternation about Stefan Diggs and Gabe Davis leaving. First of all, they were not throwing the ball to Stefan Diggs much at all down the stretch last year. This isn't like taking Randy Moss and his prime off of the Vikings. Stefan Diggs had cycled through his relevance to the bills by the time we got to the end of last season. Gabe Davis never lived up to the promise that we saw the 90s scored four touchdowns against the Chiefs in that classic division around game. So as long as you got Josh Allen, there are plenty of guys out there that can run routes, get open, and catch passes. There aren't many Josh Allen's out there. And he had a throw last night. There's a holy crap. I mean, there's a thousand guys that can make that catch. There's one or two guys that can make that throw. That's the bill's ace in the hole, and that's why they're two and oh, and that's why they're going to keep winning games as long as he's healthy. As long as that left hand that had that big giant glove on it, like the old cartoon, when somebody would blow into their thumb and their hand would explode. I don't know what he had stuffed in that glove, but as long as he's healthy, they'll be fine. Somebody else, somebody else besides me, spent a lot of time watching Saturday morning cartoons back in the day. Thank you for that reference. I appreciate it. I got a good Saturday morning cartoon story for you that I've told on the show before. I'll tell you some other time when we're having a conversation. You'll both like it and be horrified by it, but go ahead. I'm sorry to interrupt you. Okay. Now I'm intrigued. Now I'm intrigued. That is a professional tease if I've ever heard one. All the other things you mentioned about Buffalo, Mike, there's another one. There's another dimension, and this is huge if you are a Josh Allen, protect Josh Allen guy. Look at Joe Brady. What he can now put in his offensive coordinator repertoire is that he's got a lot of running backs that he can go to with different skill sets. You saw Cook last night with his street touchdown, so he is an elusive fast. I mean, just kind of just one of those backs, not a bulky guy, but can do a lot of things. So you got that guy. Ray Davis, what an addition for Buffalo, a small guy, but stout can run between the tackles and they have Ty Johnson as a third down back. The point is they don't have to just say, okay, it's third and short. Hey, Josh, take the ball and just run up the middle. I mean, he can do that. They don't have to do it. I think this is probably the most complete running back group they've had in Buffalo and all of these guys compliment each other. They make a lot of sense. I think the offense, even with the loss of digs, I think the offense is better. I think you're absolutely right, and I want to flip it over to Tua. It's difficult to criticize his play. It preceded the injury. But the three interceptions that he threw, and I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder and you can have reasonable minds differ on whose fault each one is. The first one, the ball was delivered behind the receiver when it care him off of his shoulder pads into the hands of a bills defender. The second one, I heard a suggestion last night that maybe Robbie Anderson chosen Anderson ran the wrong route. Unless the route was, go deep and climb a ladder. I don't know that, you know, it would have been his fault because that just looked like a misfire. And the last one was just a failed effort to get rid of the football. He didn't have the arm strength to get the ball out of bounds when he was gobbled up by the defensive line. And you can't play well, this guy's injured, that guy's injured. You got to make quicker decisions, better decisions about what to do to get rid of the football. So you're not in that spot where you're just saying, "I got to get rid of this ball because the walls have closed in." All three of those. You could, yeah, and I'm sure there's plenty of blame that you can, of course, if you study the film, but boy, they sure look like just bad decisions and bad throws by the guy who had the football in his hands. Yeah, the one, let's call it the arm strength interception. That one will drive a coach crazy and probably drives too crazy and goes back and looks at the film. That's just one of those where you got to know the situation and you got to know what you can do. I saw that, Mike, I said, "What is he doing?" It would be a big loss, but you sit there and you take the sack and you take the huge loss, but that was just... Even if you have the arm strength to do that, that's such a risky throw. The negatives far outweigh the positives, all the negative things that could happen. I mean, it's that throw, that's like a textbook, "Oh, wow, what the hell." It's almost like those plays sometimes where the quarterback will fall down, untouched, get back up and then try to throw the ball. Generally bad things happen on that one, too, unless you're Patrick Mahomes and you make magic out of it, but generally those plays are going to be exactly that, either an almost interception or an interception. Yeah, and I can't think of many guys other than Mahomes and Josh Allen who even have a chance of getting that ball to where Toa Tonga Vala was trying to put it when he was heading toward the ground with the attempted sack. Alright, let's take a break. When we return, our Friday morning staple, not to be confused with the Saturday morning cartoons, Friday morning, show me something draft for week two, that's next on PFT Live. Everybody knows that, it's not no "if," you know what I'm saying? We are the team that be in the AFC and we know it, and we've got to act like it, and we've got to play like it, too. To Mark Chase, even though they do not look good against the New England Patriots on Sunday, they're the team to beat in the AFC, well, they're going to visit the team to beat in the NFL, the team to beat at the last six years. Here's what we do, Michael. Show me something. We don't have a lot of time. I'd like to get to three each if we can. If I would shut up, we could start. You're up first. Alright, show me something. DeShawn Watson. What happened to you? What happened to you? DeShawn Watson in 2020, Mike, almost 5,000 yards passing, 400 plus yards rushing, 33 touchdown, seven picks. Now, he looks like a bad quarterback. I thought, when he signed that contract, when he got there, I said, "Oh, he's going to be there, and he's going to cost Kevin Stefanski and Andrew Berry their jobs." Oh, I got it wrong. I think they may all go down together if he doesn't show me something. Show me something, Aaron Rodgers, because what I saw Monday night looked a little rusty, looked a little old, looked a little different from the guy we're used to seeing. This is his chance to go to Tennessee. They need this win badly if they want to have a season that will avoid having a lot of people fired in New York as well. One more. Let's see if we get one more each. Go. Alright, show me something, Jamar Chase. I thought that clip was a joke. I didn't know. What's that from? Is this the onion? What is he talking about? Okay, show me that you're the team to be as simple as that. I need to see it. Last one for me, and this is aspirational. This is trying to speak it into existence. Show me something Baker Mayfield. Show me that I'm right, being the only person who believes in the Buccaneers. I think they can go to Michigan. I think they can go up there and eat them some cat, Michael Hawley. I think they can. We recommend not eating cats. I like it. Or dogs. I like it. Or any other household animal. No, we don't eat the fish. Michael, thank you. That was great. When we return, picks podcast with Chris Sims. See ya. The $5 meal deal at McDonald's means you get to pick between them a double or a chicken. Then get a small fry, a small drink, and a four-piece McNuggets. That's a lot of McDonald's for not a lot of money. Get the $5 meal deal today. Prices and participation may vary for a limited time only. Hey, Applebee's. Congrats on becoming the official grilling bar sponsor of the NFL. How does it feel? I'm glad we'll be able to bring some eggs to heat. Any plans to celebrate? Yeah, we're gonna serve up America's favorite boneless wings for just $0.50 each to kick off the season. 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