BALTIMORE — The NFL stopped Monday night, turning away from the relentless business of preparing for games to pray and hope for the recovery of Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin.
Few players and coaches, including those on the Ravens, had witnessed a football moment so chilling. Hamlin rose from a collision with Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins and, after taking a few steps, collapsed to the field, his heart no longer functioning. He had to be revived as teammates and opponents watched in bewildered horror.
“The first thing that goes through your mind is you’ve never seen anybody fall down like that before,” said Ravens defensive end Calais Campbell, who thought he’d glimpsed every eventuality over 15 years in the league.
“It was weird because it looked like such an ordinary play,” Ravens cornerback Marlon Humphrey said. “And then, obviously the more you talked about it, it kind of hit home that, you say all the time you put your life on the line playing this game, but it’s crazy for that to really end up like that.”
“Stuff that’s unimaginable,” said Ravens linebacker Patrick Queen, who was watching the game. “Every time we put pads on, we never think about that [possibility]. … A hit like that, you wouldn’t think it would have any consequence like what he’s going through. We do plays like that all the time, and nothing happens.”
Hamlin remained in the ICU in critical condition Wednesday but has shown signs of improvement, the Bills said in a statement. The league has yet to announce whether the Bills-Bengals game will be completed. If it isn’t, the Ravens would have no chance to win the AFC North, even if they defeat the Bengals on Sunday afternoon.
The atmosphere in the Ravens’ locker room was far from somber Wednesday. Music still blared. Players still joked with one another. But every interview began with Hamlin, not with the Bengals or the unclear playoff implications around Sunday’s game.
“It’s, uh, unique,” Campbell said of not knowing whether a division title will be on the line. “You hope they make a ruling, tell us what they’re going to do. But it’s a tough situation. We understand that. Whatever the ruling may be … we’ll accept it.”
This is a league that rolled on through the COVID pandemic with mutant rosters playing in stadiums stripped of fans. Games routinely restart minutes after players wobble off the field with head injuries. So it was sobering to watch current and former NFL stars react to what they watched from Cincinnati. All of them have accepted the abstract possibility of suffering a terrible injury from the game, but this was a deeper, more immediate confrontation with their worst fears.
Bengals coach Zac Taylor, who began preparing for the Ravens as he was still processing the experience of watching Hamlin fight for his life, recalled the words Bills coach Sean McDermott spoke to him on the field: “I need to be at the hospital with Damar. I shouldn’t be coaching this game.”
Ravens coach John Harbaugh said his mind immediately went to McDermott and Taylor, coaches he has competed against and respects, as he watched events unfold Monday.
“You put yourself in the shoes of the people involved. You can see yourself on that sideline trying to deal with it,” he said. “You try to think to yourself, ‘What would I do? How would I think in that situation?’ I admired the two head coaches very much for the way they handled it.”
“Unprecedented is the word that gets thrown around a lot about this situation, because it is,” Taylor said at his news conference Wednesday. “You do have to move forward as a team, because we do have a game to play on Sunday. We do have to move focus to that. But at the same time, you don’t have to move past what’s happening right now. … I think talking about it — what you saw, what you felt — helps.”
Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow told reporters Wednesday there were side discussions among players about not playing Sunday. “Personally, I think playing is going to be tough,” said Burrow, who acknowledged mixed feelings in the locker room.
When the Ravens gathered Tuesday, they talked about Hamlin in their positional meetings. Most have spent the week checking for updates on his condition whenever they have free moments. The team’s psychologist and chaplain were available for counseling sessions.
“We came in Tuesday and had meetings, and there was something that didn’t feel right about being there and doing that,” tight end Mark Andrews said. “But there’s nothing we can really do but come in here and do our jobs and pray. Everything else, we can’t control.”
Andrews tried to put himself in the shoes of Hamlin’s teammates and family members. “It’s tough to see,” he said. “But I think it’s incredible, just the NFL community, the brotherhood, the players, just the prayer that everybody has had for him.”
Said Queen: “The biggest thing we were all getting from it was just being grateful for the people around you, for what you do, for your family. Just stuff outside of football. … We look at each other different. You look at your family different. You look at everything that’s in your life outside of football different.”
Players said they can’t let the haunting images they saw Monday night change their approach to games. They’re used to seeing terrible injuries on the field — ankles bent the wrong way, eyes dazed after concussive hits — and forging ahead. They know that the physical and financial implications of such moments could carry well past their final NFL snaps.
“It probably lingers in some people’s heads,” Queen said. “I think for me, it won’t. I just go out there and play the game that I love. I think we all do. We expect to play at the highest level, and I don’t think we look toward injury.”
“The weird thing is, if you’re going all out and you got hurt, or you’re playing kind of soft and you get hurt, which way would you rather go out?” Humphrey said. “I think there’s something there. If you’re going to play this game, you just go all out. What happens, happens.”
So many Ravens used the word “love” to describe their relationship to the sport, even in the shadow of tragedy.
“If I didn’t love this game, maybe it would be more difficult,” Andrews said when asked how it will feel to play Sunday on the same field where Hamlin collapsed. “But I love what I do. I love each and every day. … My love for the game doesn’t alter or change just because something bad happened.”
