What Took the NFL So Long?
In crisis, the league hesitates, and loses
AP photo
Sixty-five minutes. That’s how long it took Monday night for the NFL to discover its humanity. A player lay near death on the field, kept alive by the absolute heroics of the medical people at Paycor Stadium. For nearly 10 minutes, they performed CPR on Buffalo safety Damar Hamlin.
Should we keep playing?
Players wept and prayed and looked away. Fans caught in a horrible, communal moment respected the solemnity of the instant. A man lay on the field, fighting for his life. The NFL pondered. Faced with a genuine life-or-death situation, the league blinked.
Sixty-five minutes before the NFL postponed the game.
Maybe today, details will fill in the missing colors. Both head coaches, the Bengals Zac Taylor and Buffalo’s Sean McDermott, were seen in the stadium tunnel near the Bills locker room, talking into a cell phone, presumably to league officials. Nearly an hour had passed since Hamlin tackled Tee Higgins then promptly collapsed.
What did the coaches hear from the league? What were their reactions? We might never know.
We can tell time, though.
The medical folks were flawless, acting quickly and decisively. The players, who we forget sometimes are human beings, experienced the genuine horror of the moment. The whole country paused in dread. The league pondered. Or so it seemed.
What’s to ponder? Not the suddenly scrambled logistics of the late-season/playoff picture. Not the liability the league might face for resuming the game. Not the NFL’s image. Not protecting the brand or The Shield or whatever term you wish to associate with the country’s most powerful sports conglomerate.
This was not a fluid situation. Everyone knew what was happening. A man lies on a football field in danger of losing his life. You don’t need 65 minutes to decide what to do. Even a middling lawyer could tell a league official what should be written in a league statement about the matter.
Out of respect for Damar Hamlin, his family, the players and fans — out of respect for the game — we have decided to postpone the game indefinitely. The NFL extends its thoughts and prayers to Damar and his family.
That’s it. Easy. Instead, we got this:
Hamlin received immediate medical attention on the field by team and independent medical staff and local paramedics.
And this:
The NFL has been in constant communication with the NFL Players Association which is in agreement with postponing the game.
Two of the statement’s four paragraphs, devoted to CYA imperatives and Shield protection.
Look at us, we did everything right. If you have issues with how this was handled, well, the players are in this, too.
The league made the right call, eventually. It was also the only call. That was obvious to everyone, from crying players to rational head coaches, to you and me. It was obvious the instant EMTs started compressing Damar Hamlin’s chest. No one else needed an hour to decide what was the right thing to do. Hamlin fell at 8:55 Monday night. The league called the game at approximately 10:01.
In the uncertainty, ESPN’s Joe Buck said he had information that the game would be delayed five minutes. The league denied that was ever an option, but the idea had to originate somewhere. Hint: It didn’t come from players or coaches.
The NFL is impressively efficient at just about everything it does. Its Super Bowl Week runs like a Swiss watch. The league has contingencies for everything. Except this time. The NFL reacted by doing what it normally does. It led with its corporate head, not its empathetic heart.
Now, then. . .
I’M TORN ABOUT HOW ESPN’S “TALENT’’ handled it. I realize no one could have been prepared for this, but the folks at the Worldwide Leader came off as flat-footed. Instead of information, we got grief. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but once it’s made clear, it’s time for journalism to take over.
Where was a doctor, any doctor, to speak to what occurred on the field? To offer theories about why it occurred? Label it as speculation, if you want, but it’s informed speculation. In one Tweet, Joe Danneman at Fox-19 got more valid info than a whole network.
Why was no one dispatched to UC Medical Center? Fans were there 30 minutes after the game was called, conducting a vigil.
What we got instead from ESPN was what we knew already. Tragic, shocking et cetera. Booger McFarland was totally overwhelmed by the moment. That’s understandable, but at some point, he had to get his act together and offer something besides grief. Man’s paid $2 mil a year.
We’re not asking for Cronkite-after-JFK here. Just a little more than what we got.
What say you?
More important than what the NFL did or did not do wrong, is the coming together of people to support and pray for this young man. Bills fans and Bengals fans came together, people of different economic means came together, people of different races came together.....all to support and pray for a young man that almost none of them know in real life. For all the bull crap that is spewed about the US being a divided country with a huge racial problem, the truth shined through in a tragic moment last night. A Black Life Mattered above all else. A Life mattered more than that. As it should be.
I was (doom)scrolling Twitter (again) just before I got the alert TML came over and had just sent the following tweet...
"I can give the NFL a grudging pass for not making the suspension of play public for an hour - there's a lot to consider getting 65K people safely out of PBS - but the fact we have yet to hear from the Commish 13 hours later is unconscionable." Not unprecedented for a multi-billion-dollar business to go hard on CYA, but you, me, my 18-year-old nephew & 71-year-old aunt with whom I was watching the game, my sister & BIL in the stands... we all drafted some version of the statement before the ambulance left the field. Absolutely no excuse not to get in front of it. You not only buy time, you buy grace.
As for the Worldwide Leader, totally with you on the coverage, especially when they cut back to the studio before calling the game. Schefter and Booger were useless. Poor Suzi Kolber was trying to ask them questions to get them talking, but they were too overcome. It was painful on a lot of levels and she ultimately threw in the towel. You know how hard it is to get reliable information in a crisis scenario, but there IS info available. Why did they not dispatch some intern to cull all the footage on Hamlin and put together a highlight reel? Reach out to his college coach. If you get a no comment, fine. Report that, becaue the coach would have had HIS version of the statement. But to sit there dumbfounded made it so much worse for people who wanted info. I understand it's the toy department and these folks aren't used to this kind of coverage. But I'm pretty sure Al Michaels won an Emmy for turning into a news guy during a live earthquake at the World Series. Missed opportunity for ESPN. That said, once the game was officially called and SVP took over, it was a lot better. Ryan Clark was sympathetic and incisive. If anyone came out of last night looking good, it was him.