Damar Hamlin’s saga makes it impossible to think deeper, to ask more complicated questions.
In the aftermath of his devastating injury, there was no doubt the game needed to be canceled. As I watched the scene unfold, the fraught expressions on the faces of Bills players made me wonder aloud how they would even be able to play a game in six days.
“How could a football game matter at all right now?”
Not since the Sept. 11 attacks did the prospect of a football game seem so irrelevant. That’s the last time the NFL decided the show couldn’t move forward. Blizzards, hurricanes, a global pandemic — the NFL endured.
But Hamlin’s injury and the uncomfortable news around it — needing to be resuscitated twice, being intubated and listed in critical condition — brought the league momentarily to a halt. Even the portion of fans who too often view professional athletes as characters on a television show rather than human beings seemed to pause.
I was there, in the same place as so many while simultaneously in a different ones My life revolves around the Bills. Analyzing games, speaking with players and gathering information on the team is how I feed my family.
But all while Hamlin’s situation evolved, my family was planning to grow by one. During the few days updates on Hamlin were scarce, I checked my phone constantly. Sometimes seeking news on Hamlin, but most often half-expecting a call from my wife telling me it was time to get home and go to the hospital.
By the time doctors from the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, and subsequently Sean McDermott, Josh Allen and Brandon Beane, finally spoke to the media Thursday, I was in the hospital with my wife. Concern for Hamlin was there, as was the desire to be involved in these press conferences to help relay the information so many were yearning for, but my family was more important.
At that point I knew I was sidelined for the media availability reporters were waiting three days to receive and the Patriots game on Sunday. The first two days in the hospital were a waiting game and my wife — she’s an incredible woman — gave me permission to go do my job, but football simply wasn’t important enough to leave her alone or risk missing anything.
Catching up on all of the positive updates on Hamlin throughout Thursday and Friday, I realized a game that was so immaterial a few days earlier suddenly became one of the most important games in Buffalo sports history.
But it wasn’t until I turned the TV in the hospital Sunday that I understood playing the game was not only important, but cathartic. I held my daughter, who would not officially be a day old, as Nyheim Hines returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown.
With his golden pipes, Jim Nantz dubbed the play storybook, but it was much more. Hines was like a metal pole getting struck by lightning, electrifying a crowd that had been praying, hoping, and maybe by that point, expecting something great.
It was also a cleansing moment for my family, not because the Bills scored a touchdown or anything related to what happened on the field, but due to the fact that it was the first time in weeks we had truly been able to take a deep breath and focus on something without imminent concern.
This child was almost two years in the making, including 10 months of an at-risk pregnancy, fear we might have to fight through feet of snow during an unrelenting snowstorm if she decided to come early, a week of wondering, followed by a 56-hour induction that stalled and ended with a successful cesarean section.
So much about the last four days exemplified why sports have no peer. There’s no script, but no writer could ever predict the drama and perfect endings we see so often.
The Bills received their moments of relief when Hamlin awoke and began to communicate, and then were galvanized by his pregame talk. An entire region hinging upon the health of one player many have never personally met — and likely will never meet — like a beloved family member is why a game so driven by greed and selfishness can sometimes still seem so pure.
Sports, man.