Nothing stops the mighty NFL? Damar Hamlin’s near death did. Football knew its place | Opinion
America sat watching in disbelief as a young athlete was caught between life and death. In a full stadium turned silent in Cincinnati. In homes across America tuned to “Monday Night Football.” Many of us had never before heard of the player for whom we now prayed.
Where do you put the shock? Where does the sympathy and the sorrow go? And the hope, too?
America put it in toys for underprivileged kids.
That is the cause closest to Damar Hamlin’s heart.
The heart that stopped beating Monday night.
He has a foundation that annually raises money to buy holiday toys for children who might otherwise go without in his small hometown of McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania. That’s near Pittsburgh, where Hamlin attended Central Catholic High, the same hallways Dan Marino once walked.
Hamlin’s GoFundMe page for the toy drive had set a modest goal of $2,500.
By Tuesday morning the total had surpassed $3 million.
That was toys for kids, ostensibly. Mostly the overnight outpouring was an expression of both helplessness and support for the 24-year-old player who now lay in critical condition at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, the nearest Level 1 trauma center to the stadium where the Buffalo Bills and Bengals had been playing.
The ambulance on the field took Hamlin there Monday night after his heartbeat had been revived by the miracle workers who attended him for 16 minutes while America held its breath.
The game was first postponed, then suspended to a later date not yet set. Inconsequentially, the Bengals were ahead, 7-3, in what had been a highly anticipated game between AFC powers entering the final week of the NFL regular season.
They say nothing stops the NFL.
But this did.
This had Bills star quarterback Josh Allen weeping into his hands, consoled by his Bengals counterpart, Joe Burrow.
This had the two head coaches, visibly shaken, meeting with the referee and agreeing the game could not go on that night. That was before the NFL office and the players association concurred.
“What was most important was that it wasn’t about proceeding with the game,” NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent (a former Dolphins cornerback) said during the conference call. “Frankly, that aspect never crossed my mind or their mind internally. It was obvious on the phone with them that the emotions were extremely high.”
There are pragmatic discussions going on right now at the league’s New York headquarters, make no mistake. Unless the game is canceled, it must be completed, but when? The pragmatic football side is that eight teams are fighting into the last week for three remaining unclaimed playoff spots, the Miami Dolphins among them.
On Tuesday NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced the Bills-Bengals game will not be resumed this week, and that no decision has been made regarding the possible resumption of the game at a later date. The league said there will not be any changes to this week’s Week 18 schedule that concludes the regular season schedule.
The games must go on.
But not this night, not when a player lay on the turf between life and death.
Hamlin had made a tackle, just as he’d made 91 previous this season. Bengals receiver Tee Higgins had lowered his shoulder into Hamlin’s chest, but it was a clean play. Routine. Hamlin arose from it, wobbled a moment, then collapsed backward to the grass.
That was when the mighty NFL, the sport that can sometimes seem as important as life and death, stepped back and understood that this game, no matter how otherwise important, was just a game, as the real life and death played out in a horrifying tableau.
It is unfair or at least premature to call this a “football injury” until it is known whether Hamlin had a preexisting heart condition that caused his cardiac arrest.
It is worth noting the medical term “commotio cordis” refers to a phenomenon in which a sudden blunt impact to the chest causes sudden death in the absence of cardiac damage. The American Heart Association says commotio cordis events primarily occur in sports.
Football deserves every bit of its notoriety as a sport dangerous to one’s health. Make that clear. Concussions such as the one Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa suffers right now can have negative long-term effects on the brain. Players have been left paralyzed on the field. The Patriots’ Darryl Stingley was, in 1978. His grandson plays for the Houston Texans today.
Hamlin himself, a second-year pro out of Pitt, was only starting at free safety because his teammate, Pro Bowl star Micah Hyde, was knocked out for the season in Week 2 by a serious neck injury.
Football players retire with a permanent limp and gnarled hands. The lucky ones.
If prayers matter, Damar Hamlin might come out of this, might leave the hospital walking and smiling.
That his NFL career might continue is surely in doubt.
That he might live to hug his mother would be victory enough for now.
This story was originally published January 3, 2023 at 11:06 AM.
