On almost a weekly basis, a NFL player suffers a serious injury. Fans go silent, a cart is called out, and the player leaves the field rather quickly.
Tonight was a different story. Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, took a hit to the chest area, got up, then fell right back down. Trainers were called out to the field and then the EMTs were sent in and for over nine minutes CPR was performed.
He left in an ambulance. Meanwhile, on the field, his teammates were struggling to remain composed. The NFL decided to let both teams go back to the locker room and temporarily suspended the game.
There really is not much that will change for the Bills. Their thoughts are with Hamlin and what is going on with him at the hospital. So if the NFL truly cared about player safety, the game needed to get cancelled immediately, instead of suspended.
Sung Min Kim said it best in a tweet, which urged any fans that were at the game to do their part, leave the stadium. No one is expecting the Bills to have their minds right either. Which increases the risk of more injuries.
As Skip Bayless pointed out in a tweet which really served no purpose and wasn’t the time nor the place to do it, he insinuated that Hamlin’s injury was different. That was obvious, yet how can the NFL get taken seriously when it comes to the health of players when it still has not cancelled the remainder of the Cincinnati Bengals and Bills game tonight?
What matters the most is the health of Hamlin, not this game tonight. Absolutely no need to worry about logistics at this point either. His life is more important than that, time for the NFL to act like it.