AFC Notes: Bills, Tua Tagovailoa, Dolphins, Jets

Bills

• Ian Rapoport mentions it’s his understanding that Damar Hamlin has yet to be cleared by the Bills’ medical staff and his physical well-being will be discussed over the next several months. 

Dolphins

Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa feels grateful that the organization held him out from playing even though he wanted to after what was possibly his third concussion of the season.

“For concussion protocol, I think the team did me the biggest service throughout that,” Tagovailoa said, via Mackenzie Salmon of USA Today. “They never allowed me to go through protocol normally until the season was done. So that’s why it might have seemed like it took forever, but they were just protecting me from myself. And me and my family are very thankful to the Dolphins. But it really entailed a lot of exertion, so like running, ocular and vestibular movements, so like balance, proprioception — things like that. Having gone to see a doctor in Pittsburgh, got clear from him and then had to do written test, memorization.”

Jets

While things may not have gone as hoped for Mike LaFleur during his time with the Jets, he said he wouldn’t “pass those two years up for anything.”

“I won’t pass those two years up for anything,” LaFleur said, via Greg Beacham of the Associated Press. “Every building, every circumstance is a little bit different. We decided two years ago we were going to go young, and we did, and we committed to that. There was things I won’t share in terms of what I would do differently, but it was a great learning experience about building a roster with a lot of youth.

“I was proud of a lot of things we did, and unfortunately it slipped away from us on the back end, but fortunately, I’m in a great situation here. Took that job for a reason, to grow and learn after a good four years with the team up north [the 49ers] and learned a ton there, from Kyle [Shanahan] in that building, and have so much respect for them, but it felt like it was a step for me to go in a situation that I wanted to learn and grow and get in front of these guys through the good and the bad and again, I appreciate the relationships I have with a lot of those players, all of those players.”