By Ken Belson
The NFL was facing one of its worst crises in decades as Buffalo Bills defender Damar Hamlin remained in critical condition Tuesday after collapsing during a prime-time game in Cincinnati, raising fresh questions about ever-present serious injury in America’s biggest sport.
Hamlin, 24, collapsed in the first quarter of a highly anticipated matchup with the Bengals on Monday night, forcing the league to suspend the game. As Hamlin lay on the field motionless, many of his teammates in tears nearby, medical workers pumped his heart in a suddenly hushed stadium.
After Hamlin’s heartbeat was restored and he was taken off the field by ambulance, to be transported to a hospital trauma unit, the coaches conferred with Shawn Smith, the head referee, and the players walked into their locker rooms. About 30 minutes later, the league formally postponed the game, and the Bills later flew back to Buffalo, New York.
In a brief interview Tuesday, Jordon Rooney, Hamlin’s marketing agent, said Hamlin’s family had no updates on his condition but remained hopeful.
“They’re strong. They’re optimistic,” Rooney said. “They’re being patient as they can be.” Rooney said that he had been at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center all night and that the family had been in constant communication with the Bills.
The team said in a statement Tuesday afternoon that Hamlin remained in the hospital’s intensive care unit in critical condition.
“We want to express our sincere gratitude for the love and support shown to Damar during this challenging time,” the family said in a statement distributed by Rooney.
The league said in a statement that the Bills-Bengals game would not be resumed this week and that it had not decided whether or when to finish the game. Both teams are vying for the lone bye in the first round of the playoffs heading into the last weekend of the regular season.
The dark turn was a reminder that the NFL has become America’s most popular league despite an always-present risk of injury. With the regular season winding down and the playoffs around the corner, the league has seen a high number of close contests and jaw-dropping plays and has been richly rewarded by broadcasters and sponsors for them.
But the NFL juggernaut flipped to a prime-time nightmare that overtook a national showcase between two championship contenders. The question of violence that always hovers over NFL contests had once again rocked the league. Hamlin’s cardiac arrest was no torn knee or busted ankle. It was potentially life-ending, the most frightening type of injury in a sport built on frightening collisions.
The reaction from fans and football veterans was swift, predictable and confusing. There were expressions of support. Sensing the gravity of the situation, many NFL teams sent well wishes to Hamlin on Twitter. Millions of dollars were donated overnight to a fundraiser that Hamlin had set up to pay for toy drives and other activities for children.
At the same time, television viewers heard Joe Buck, ESPN’s play-by-play broadcaster for the game, say that the players, just before they returned to the locker rooms, were told they would have about five minutes to get ready to play again. Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow could be seen tossing a football.
“That’s the word we get from the league and the word we get from down on the field, but nobody’s moving,” Buck said.
In a news conference about three hours later, the NFL denied that there was any consideration to restarting the game.
“Immediately, my player hat went on,” Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president for football operations and a former cornerback, said to reporters. “How do you resume play after you’ve seen such a traumatic event occur in front of you real time? And that’s the way we were thinking about it.”
Whatever the truth, football fans — and even former star players — are once again asking whether the game they enjoy is worth the risk. Ryan Clark, a former hard-hitting defensive back who is now an analyst on ESPN, said many players fool themselves into thinking they are modern-day gladiators when in fact they are highly paid entertainers smashing their bodies for a living.
“We use these cliches. ‘Going to war,’ ‘willing to die,’ ‘give it all,’” Clark wrote on Twitter on Monday night. “That’s all talk. It’s a game. A game! You never suit up & think you’re not going to make it home.”
Coaches, too, appeared to be grappling with the dilemmas raised by football and an event that has thrown the league’s hard-and-fast rhythms off-kilter. Coaches at several teams canceled their scheduled conference calls with reporters, though many continued their preparation for this weekend’s games.
Hamlin’s collapse was far from the only reminder of football’s “next man up” culture in a league where the lack of guaranteed contracts incentivizes players to return to action as soon as possible. Indeed, Hamlin had joined the Bills’ starting lineup in September as a replacement for safety Micah Hyde, who has been out with a neck injury.
Injuries and even deaths are not uncommon in football. Every year, a handful of high school football players die, some from heatstroke, some from broken necks. Families and communities are shattered. Yet while participation in high school football has slipped in recent years, it remains the most popular sport among boys.
The NFL is another realm because it has turned the game into mass entertainment, complete with cheerleaders, packed stadiums and big-name sponsors hawking their products. Yet the NFL knows the game’s violence has turned off fans and has watched families steer their sons into baseball, basketball and soccer.
So the league takes pains to remind fans that it is using its vast resources to “make the game safer” and “take the head out of the game.” In 2019, the league even produced a video on how to recognize and rescue players who suffer sudden cardiac arrest.
But tackle football centers on bigger, stronger and faster players crashing into one another on every down, and no amount of dollars, training and good intentions will change that. The best the NFL can do is reduce risk, not eliminate it.