For the past week, all eyes have been on Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, who went into cardiac arrest after making a tackle against the Cincinnati Bengals on Monday Night.
It was a terrifying scene as the 24-year-old visibly collapsed on the field.
Medical staff had to perform CPR and provide oxygen in an effort to resuscitate him, as his teammates and opponents looked on in horror.
He was transported via ambulance to University of Cincinnati Hospital, where his uncle confirmed he had to be resuscitated again.
After being taken into critical care, luckily enough, it was confirmed that Hamlin was “neurologically intact:”
“Amazing news: Buffalo Bills announce Damar Hamlin is neurologically intact. He is showing extremely positive signs toward recovery from critical condition due to cardiac arrest.”
As of yesterday, Hamlin was also communicating to people through writing, and even asked the doctors:
“Did we win?”
And the doctors responded:
“Yes, you won the game of life.”
Although there’s been a ton of great news coming out about Hamlin, there are still some people out there who are criticizing Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins, who is the one Hamlin made the tackle on.
Bart Scott from First Take was one of those people:
“Right before the tackle, he lowers his helmet, he kind of throws his body into his chest. He’s standing up because he’s thinking he’s got to chase Tee Higgins at an angle to make a tackle. So he didn’t expect Tee Higgins to launch his body back into him.
You know it’s one of those things where a lot of times you see as a linebacker, unblocked, you know, unnegated running back comes through the hole, and he knows the contact is coming, so he lowers his helmet and you can’t get underneath him, so he’s able to get into you, and your chest is exposed.
They’ve taken that out of the game, but they don’t really regulate it as much as possible, I expect the league to be more vigilant when it comes to that and using that penalty.”
But in the wake of the criticism, Higgins revealed that Hamlin’s family has reached out to the Bengals wide receiver to provide an update on Hamlin’s health and also to offer their support to Higgins.
And he’s also got the support of his QC. Yesterday, Bills quarterback Josh Allen said in a press conference that Higgins doesn’t deserve any of this heat he’s been getting, and said it could happen to anybody:
“I haven’t reached out to Tee. I hope that he got some relief today. I don’t know, I saw some stuff on Twitter, and people should not be attacking him whatsoever, and I’m glad that Damar’s family came out and said that.
Hopefully he found some relief today, because that’s a football play, and I hope that he doesn’t hold that upon himself because there’s nothing else that he could’ve done in that situation.”
Higgins himself also addressed the media for the first time since the incident yesterday, saying that he’s in a “good place” after hearing the news about Hamlin’s progress:
