Monday's incident involving Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin simply brings home the fact that many of us have lived with for years. Football at the professional, and college level, is a violent, violent sport.
This is not the NFL of the 1950s and 1960s. Players then were smaller overall and didn't spend the entire off-season training, but worked off-season jobs to augment a much MUCH smaller pro paycheck. Players have gotten bigger-faster-stronger since, .and collisions have gotten much more violent. It's said a tackle in today's football is akin to getting hit by a truck
Hamlin made what looked like a routine, though solid, tackle on Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins. He got up, seemed to adjust his facemask, then just fell over. Hamlin's heart had stopped. Fortunately, immediate medical attention led to life-saving CPR. Though still hospitalized in critical condition, here's hoping that the 24-year-old Hamlin recovers.
Having been part of a heart-stopping event myself (and have a pacemaker/defibrillator to show for it), I can attest to how frightening the whole situation can be.
Seemed like it took the higher ups in the National Football League forever to decide on a course of action following a delay in the game that was stopped with just under six minutes left in the first quarter. First it was suspended, then later postponed.
That's the right course of action. This isn't about a football game. It's about a person's life. When you see players on the field, grown men, openly crying....well, football is the farthest thing from their minds.
Ours, too.
As to what the NFL should do going forward? Though this was a game that could affect the top seed in the AFC playoffs (Buffalo was 12-3, Cincinnati 11-4), there's little time left to go back and finish this contest.
Either call it a tie or label it a no-contest and move to the final week of the season. Just have one less game factor into the standings.
And pray that Damar Hamlin comes out of this okay.
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