Hamlin tragedy leads to scrutiny over time taken to postpone game
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[January 04, 2023]
By Steve Keating and Amy Tennery
(Reuters) -The time it took the National Football League (NFL) to
postpone the game after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered a
cardiac arrest on the field against the Cincinnati Bengals came
under renewed focus on Tuesday.
During the first quarter of Monday's game, the 24-year-old Hamlin
got to his feet after making a tackle on Cincinnati Bengals' Tee
Higgins and then collapsed.
Hamlin left the stadium by ambulance at 9:25 pm ET and was
transported to a Cincinnati hospital where he was listed in critical
condition.
The game was officially postponed by the NFL at 10:01 pm, but fans
and former players had reacted angrily online after a broadcast had
earlier said the teams would get a five-minute warm-up to prepare to
play again.
"What’s taking so long," retired twice Super Bowl champion Damien
Woody said on Twitter at 9:44 pm. "Cancel the game!!"
"CANCEL THE GAME ALREADY," former first-round quarterback Robert
Griffin III wrote five minutes later.
The NFL said that there was never any discussion of resuming play
and that it did not know where the broadcast had got the information
regarding the warm-up.
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"Frankly there was no time period for the players to get warmed up,"
NFL Executive Vice President, Football Operations, Troy Vincent,
told reporters.
"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 we
should ever be in."
ESPN, which broadcast the game, said there was "constant
communication" between ESPN, the league and game officials.
"We reported what we were told in the moment and immediately updated
fans as new information was learned," ESPN said in a statement.
"This was an unprecedented, rapidly-evolving circumstance. All night
long, we refrained from speculation."
The National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) did not
immediately respond to a request for comment but said in a statement
that its focus "remains on the health of our brother, Damar Hamlin."
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![](../images/010423PIX/sports13.jpg)
Buffalo Bills cornerback Siran Neal (33) reacts as Buffalo Bills
safety Damar Hamlin (3) is tended to on the field and taken off by
ambulance in the first quarter against the Cincinnati Bengals at
Paycor Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kareem Elgazzar-USA TODAY Sports
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'UNPRECEDENTED SITUATION'
The league said on Tuesday that the game would not resume this week
and that it had made no decision with regard to possibly resuming
the game at another point in time.
Leigh Steinberg, a sports agent often credited as the inspiration
behind the character 'Jerry Maguire,' said that the shock factor was
due to a widespread underestimation of "just how physical and
dangerous pro football is".
"A matter of life and death is more important than a football game,"
he told Reuters. "But this was the second to last game of the
season, with playoff implications on Monday Night Football. And
there's not a lot of precedent for this.
"The fact that they went ahead and postponed it at all, I think is
something favorable."
Calling off the game involved a high-wire act with multiple parties
in an "unprecedented situation", said Patrick Sandusky, the former
head of communications for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee
and Madison Square Garden.
"Everything seems longer when you are watching in real time,"
Sandusky told Reuters. "Given the complexities and logistics and
everything involved in an unprecedented situation like that to have
a decision and unilateral agreement within 30 minutes I think is
pretty quick.
"The important thing there was to get it right, not fast and they
did both."
(Reporting by Steve Keating in Toronto and Amy Tennery in New York;
Editing by Toby Davis/Peter Rutherford)
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