Two quarterbacks from Hawaii are in the national sports news because of three injuries to their heads — Tua Tagovailoa of the Miami Dolphins on Sunday and Thursday and Dillon Gabriel of the Oklahoma Sooners on Saturday.

Of course this is nothing new. Football is a high-risk activity.

But we’re supposed to be more enlightened about the danger of concussions. Awarenesss is heightened — with medical research to back it up — and rules have been added and changed to make the game safer.

And still, the hits keep coming.

Yes, they are part of the game. But now, with what we know about repeated head trauma and its short-term and long-term implications, there is no excuse for a situation like the one Tagovailoa is in now.

Tagovailoa re-entered Sunday’s game against Buffalo shortly after he displayed what appeared to be concussion symptoms, resulting from a play when the back of his head hit the turf forcefully.

Then, just four days later, he played and again took a hit that resulted in the back of his head hitting the playing surface hard. This time there was little doubt of a concussion. Tagovailoa had to be taken off the field on a stretcher, complained of headaches and was briefly hospitalized.

The injuries and potential for cumulative damage is enough that at least one columnist, Chase Goodbread of The Tuscaloosa News, believes Tagovailoa, 24, should consider retiring from football.

On Saturday, the NFL Players Association announced the firing of the unaffiliated neurology consultant who cleared Tagovailoa to return to last Sunday’s game against the Bills.

A few hours earlier, Gabriel was hit helmet-to-helmet by linebacker Jamoi Hodge in the Sooners game against TCU.

Gabriel, who was sliding at the end of a scramble in the second quarter, was briefly motionless, and then remained down on the turf for several minutes when the back of his head bounced off the playing surface. Hodge was ejected from the game.

Gabriel did walk off the field, but did not return to the game. Oklahoma coach Brent Venables said Gabriel is undergoing concussion protocol.

Hopefully, whoever is tending to Gabriel does a better job than the unidentified consultant who “made several mistakes,” in evaluating Tagovailoa, according to ESPN sources.

The NFL and the union said in a joint statement Saturday that “modifications to the concussion protocol are needed to enhance player safety” and that Tagovailoa’s return to last Sunday’s game after injury is still under review.

But what of the decision to let him play Thursday?

There should be no such decision to make; teams that play on Sunday shouldn’t play on Thursday, period. I’ve had enough former NFL players tell me three-days-and-a-wake-up is not enough time between games to know that.

Meanwhile football keeps producing what many still call “scary moments,” as if they were scenes from a fictional horror movie, with no real lasting consequences.

But this is real life, where the players are not “pieces” as they are often labeled by armchair general managers.

Especially in a world where they are pawns in our fantasy leagues and parlay bets, it can be easy to forget these elite athletes are still human beings, subject to the same laws of physiology as the rest of us.

Supposedly, we had already learned that repeated concussions can cause debilitating, life-changing — or even life-ending — injuries.

Most of us are not doctors. But many of us who watch football have a pretty good idea of what is likely a head injury when we see one, especially when we can view plays from so many different angles.

Everyone associated with football knew before this week — or should have known — that risking recurrence of a traumatic brain injury without allowing proper time for healing can be extremely dangerous.

I was surprised that Tagovailoa was allowed to re-enter Sunday’s game, and again when he played Thursday. But, since the NFL now has concussion protocols, I naively figured I was wrong and medical experts with his best interest in mind had determined Tagovailoa was good to go in both cases.

But having a policy is one thing. Executing it consistently and honestly is another.