New ESPN Report Shatters NFL’s Claim They Didn’t Push to Restart Bills-Bengals Game After Damar Hamlin’s Collapse
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An ESPN report contradicted the NFL’s claim that the league did not push to restart the game between the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals after Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed.
Hamlin went into cardiac arrest after he made a tackle on Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins. Hamlin was given CPR on the field before he was rushed to the University of Cincinnati Health Hospital, where he was intubated and listed in critical condition for several days. Hamlin’s health improved as the week went on, to the point where he was travel back to Buffalo by Monday, to continue his recovery at a local hospital there. Throughout the scary 66 minutes following Hamlin’s collapse, ESPN’s Joe Buck repeatedly said that the game would resume and that both teams were given five minutes to warm up. The NFL’s executive vice president of football operations, Troy Vincent, adamantly denied the reports.
“Five-minute warmup never crossed my mind, personally,” Vincent said. “I was the one that was communicated with the Commissioner. We never, frankly, it never crossed our mind to talk about warming up to resume play. That’s ridiculous. That’s insensitive, and that’s not a place that we should ever be in.”
According to an unnamed official from one of the two teams, the NFL’s chief football administrator Dawn Aponte constantly communicated with Bills head coach Sean McDermott, Bengals head coach Zac Taylor, and head referee Shawn Smith after the teams left the field.
In an interview with Boston sports talk radio, The Sports Hub, on Sunday, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said:
A standard practice would be to resume play, but when you get feedback that it may not be appropriate, that’s when Troy made the decision to suspend play. Which was the right decision, and allow everyone to go back and let’s gather course; leaves, and get more information, which was clear we needed to do. So, and then I made the decision to postpone shortly thereafter.
“The Lord himself could come down, and we were not going to play again,” the unnamed official told Don Van Natta Jr. of ESPN. “The league did not cancel that game. The Bills and the Bengals canceled that game.”
The unnamed source told ESPN that Goodell and Vincent might have had the final decision, but it was clear that neither team would continue to play following Hamlin’s collapse. Aponte managed communications between the league and the teams in Cincinnati.
“The ambulance left the field… and it was crystal clear from everyone’s perspective that we could not play,” the official continued. “The only chaos was coming… from the command center.”
ESPN reported that many ideas were floated, and one was to keep the Bills in Cincinnati overnight to continue the game the next day. Which was “almost instantly shot down.”
“We felt confusion and nonsense more than pressure,” the official continued. “They were still discussing things. In our mind, there was nothing to be discussed. … If they would have said, ‘if you leave you’re forfeiting the game,’ we’re still leaving.”
The team official blasted Vincent, who was the highest-ranking official at the league’s office at the time of the incident, and claimed the league’s executive vice president of football operations handled the situation poorly.
“The league screws this shit up because Troy Vincent screws this up,” the official continued. “That’s the wrong person in the wrong position at the absolute wrong time. … He wants to be the hero, but he will never take accountability. That’s him to a T.”
Buck stood by his report as the hour-long nightmare continued that Monday night, and according to ESPN.
“If what I said on national TV with the eyes of the world watching was wrong in the view of the league, I would been corrected, immediately,” Buck added.
“We were on the air for another 40 minutes, and no one corrected the idea the game would resume. No one,” Buck continued.
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