It was a terrifying situation that was covered by a terrific “Monday Night Football” team of ABC/ESPN analysts and reporters.
Everybody found the right tone covering the horrific injury to Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, but especially Booger McFarland, Ryan Clark, Lisa Salters and Scott Van Pelt.
Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field following a tackle and was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where he was in critical condition Monday night, leaving teammates in tears and fans stunned.
Play-by-play announcer Joe Buck was correct early in saying “there is nothing more to say at this point” to describe what he and analyst Troy Aikman had seen shortly after Hamlin tackled Bengals receiver Tee Higgins, got up and fell to the turf.
Buck eventually sent it over to the studio crew of Suzy Kolber, McFarland and Adam Schefter so they could try and find something appropriate to say.
McFarland, a former NFL player, was at his best telling everyone that players know they play a violent game and are signing up for broken bones and other injuries but that this was different.
“It is tough to watch,” said McFarland, adding all players want to be able to do after games is “go home with our families.”
“I can’t remember seeing players openly crying,” said Kolber.
“We’re talking about life and death now,” said McFarland after noting Hamlin needed CPR because he had trouble breathing. “All you can do is pray for this young man.”
Appearing to try to hold back tears, McFarland concluded that the much-anticipated game between the Bills and Cincinnati Bengals had to be postponed or canceled much earlier than it was finally announced.
“Nobody is concerned about football,” McFarland said. “Football is about entertainment. I don’t think anyone is in the spirit of being entertained. We’re done playing football tonight.”
The announcement came well after just about everyone on Twitter wanted the game postponed or canceled, a rare occasion for users on that social network agreeing on anything.
Clark, a 13-year NFL veteran who as a Pittsburgh Steeler in 2007 lost his spleen and gall bladder after being injured in a game, didn’t want to make it about himself instead of Hamlin as he was questioned by Van Pelt.
But Clark’s own life-threatening experience spoke volumes.
He noted all the players and not just Hamlin needed to be taken care of mentally and emotionally after this experience, a point that highlighted the absurdity of initially thinking the players could resume play.
“I’m not a medical genius but when I hear CPR it’s about people who can’t breathe on their own,” said Clark. “We are trying to make sense of something that makes no sense.
“We should remember that these men are putting their lives on the line to live their dream and tonight Damar Hamlin's dream became a nightmare not only for himself but for his family and his entire team," Clark added.
As the sideline reporter, Salters painted a vivid portrait of how the reactions of the Bills and Bengals as they crowded around Hamlin to preserve his privacy showed that this was so very different than other NFL injuries.
“They just look devastated,” Salters said of the players. “Other guys are openly weeping.”
Like McFarland, she held back tears during one of her later reports on Van Pelt’s postgame show as she described the players’ reaction on the field.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Aikman, a Hall of Fame quarterback who has been around the game for decades as a player and announcer.
“I just don’t know how any of these players can go out and play football tonight,” he added as a final decision on whether to play was delayed.
Early on, the pictures told the story and made words unnecessary.
The tears on the face of Bills receiver Stefon Diggs. Quarterback Josh Allen covering his face with his hands. Cornerback Tre’ Davious White being consoled by a Bills official.
There was Allen and Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, who are friends and train together in the offseason, sharing a hug to remind viewers that the NFL is a family that goes beyond just their teammates.
And there was Cincinnati Bengals coach Zac Taylor going across the field to talk to Bills coach Sean McDermott to discuss what should be done. The classy move by Taylor should put him in the same class of former Cincinnati quarterback Andy Dalton, who famously threw the last-second touchdown pass to beat Baltimore and end the Bills playoff drought in 2017, as a Buffalo hero.
The one thing missing from ABC and ESPN’s coverage was a medical expert who could have talked about what he or she had seen.
Sports medicine expert Dr. Brian Sutterer weighed in on Twitter. He suggested that most likely Hamlin experienced an extremely rare event of having brunt trauma to the chest at the right or wrong moment of his cardiac electrical cycle that sends the heart into arrhythmia before cardiac arrest.
As Buffalo Bills fans and fans all around the NFL waited for updates on safety Damar Hamlin, they flooded his foundation with donations.
Twitter was also where Hamlin’s marketing representative, Jordon Rooney, sent out a somewhat reassuring tweet that said: “His vitals are back to normal and they have put him to sleep to put a breathing tube down his throat. They are currently running tests.”
Viewers stayed watching, looking for any positive news or in the hope that they would be comforted by anything they heard after being shaken by an injury that reminded fans of how violent and dangerous an NFL game can be.
We also were reminded of how tragedy brings the nation together. As of this morning, a fund for Hamlin’s charity had raised more than $3.7 million of donations from across the nation.
Monday night wasn’t the time to discuss whether the game should or will be played because of its importance to seeding of the AFC playoff.
If the NFL is determined to play the game, there would seem to be one possibility: There are two weeks between the AFC and NFC championships. The NFL could have the Bills and Bengals play on what is scheduled to be the first playoff weekend, move the playoffs back a week and drop the two-week window to the Super Bowl to one week.
The Bills played the New York Giants in Tampa in Super Bowl XXV during the Gulf War a week after the conference title games in 1991.
But after the Hamlin injury, Super Bowl talk seems relatively so very unimportant.
