Buffalo Bills Damar Hamlin

I'd be curious what Heather thinks they should have done. She had a cup of coffee at ESPN, so I'm sure she's qualified to give her opinion.

I get, to an extent, that it's hard to watch them fill airtime with the same statements. I mean, there's only so much you can say in a situation like this. But at the same time, their job is to report on matters of public interest, and this had huge public interest. So they had to stay on air and keep people informed, to the extent information became available. And they did a great job filling that airtime.

Heather could have also just changed the channel since no new information was really coming out.
 
the one thing that will happen with this is that it will give football a bad name (or an even worse of a name) and more and more parents will think cardiac arrest happens because people play football.

they've already said that there is a good chance it was commotio cordis which is such a rare, freak, thing that happens and can happen numerous ways.

for all we know, Hamlin could of had an underlying condition no one knew about, too.
https://www.marca.com/en/nfl/2023/01/03/63b3f97bca4741426a8b45c7.html
I thought about the underlying condition too. Kind of like what Fred dealt with and was lucky to not have anything happen while he was still in the league.
 
the one thing that will happen with this is that it will give football a bad name (or an even worse of a name) and more and more parents will think cardiac arrest happens because people play football.

they've already said that there is a good chance it was commotio cordis which is such a rare, freak, thing that happens and can happen numerous ways.

for all we know, Hamlin could of had an underlying condition no one knew about, too.
https://www.marca.com/en/nfl/2023/01/03/63b3f97bca4741426a8b45c7.html

Read an article this morning about a former Central Florida player, age 25, that died from a heart attack while jogging.
 
I thought about the underlying condition too. Kind of like what Fred dealt with and was lucky to not have anything happen while he was still in the league.
same thing with that K-State (former Florida) bball player, I believe.

Unfortunately, these freak deals can happen to anyone, anywhere, anytime
 
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I've always wondered if more pads would help. Not to protect the player wearing them, but to slow everyone down a bit.

No chance that would ever happen. Look at what they're doing to the knee pads today. They'll always cut back on those.

I've always wondered if you could put a soft pad on the outside of the helmet to reduce some of the impact force on helmet to helmet hits.
 
I've always wondered if more pads would help. Not to protect the player wearing them, but to slow everyone down a bit.
I had a rugby player try and convince me that no pads is the safest way to play. He said with all that armor on you just hit people as hard as you can, while rugby players have to learn how to tackle without injuring themselves which makes the impacts less violent. I wasn't completely sold on it, but there was a certain logic to it I guess. I've never bothered but I'm sure you could pretty easily find some statistics to confirm or deny it.
 
It's a scary/freak injury. My kid plays football, but he also pitches in baseball. Similar fears catching a liner off of the chest, head or throat.
My son loved football in junior high and got to high school this year and decided to play fall baseball. Not really related to injury, he just is really into baseball and it's all he ever wants to do. He also pitches. While in general a kid is going to get injured a lot more often in football, I think at the HS level there's a lot more chance of something life threatening in baseball. Taking a liner while pitching is what I worry about most in sports.
 
I had a rugby player try and convince me that no pads is the safest way to play. He said with all that armor on you just hit people as hard as you can, while rugby players have to learn how to tackle without injuring themselves which makes the impacts less violent. I wasn't completely sold on it, but there was a certain logic to it I guess. I've never bothered but I'm sure you could pretty easily find some statistics to confirm or deny it.
I've always thought this.
 
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I found myself yesterday thinking "Come on NFL do something" and "Come on ESPN do something" but then the more I thought about it, I don't blame anyone for the way this was handled.

The NFL league office wasn't the ones who said "You have 5 minutes to get your players regrouped". This was the NFL officials doing the standard thing they always do when there is a serious injury. After talking to the coaches and seeing the circumstances, this didn't come into play.

Yes, it took a little while for the league office to officially come out with a statement and officially stop the game. I'm sure within 15 minutes they had decided that there was no way they were finishing this game. With that said, it's not as easy as "Sorry folks, the park is closed". Communication, handling the crowds leaving the game, were the Bills going to stay there or go home, travel, and about a thousand other things. Taking an extra 1/2 hour didn't do anything to hurt Damar. People were looking for a reason to be pissed.

As far as ESPN, I think they should have just played video of the stadium and not say anything. With that said, people were staying on the channel to hear them talk so if you didn't like what they were saying, turn the channel.
 
I’ve got a relative that works for Owatonna fire and a couple more that work for the Owatonna hospital. The most interesting thing I’ve heard about the Mayo choppers is that they won’t go out if conditions suck. They call the wild ex military pilots from Faribolt to do it instead.
Mercy in Mason city crashed a chopper several years back. We could get Mayo choppers 4:1 compared to mercy and Mayo was 3x as far.
 
I had a rugby player try and convince me that no pads is the safest way to play. He said with all that armor on you just hit people as hard as you can, while rugby players have to learn how to tackle without injuring themselves which makes the impacts less violent. I wasn't completely sold on it, but there was a certain logic to it I guess. I've never bothered but I'm sure you could pretty easily find some statistics to confirm or deny it.
Maybe. A couple buddies and I had only played football and joined a club rugby team for a couple years. Two of us learned immediately and never had any problems. You definitely self-preserve better than in football. However, the third guy with us got a concussion within about 10 seconds of his very first game, but he wasn't the brightest guy.

While I think the head to head was really minimized, there were a lot of close calls of guys getting an inadvertent knee to the head. A lot of guys had the soft headgear, which I think was a great idea, and looking back I definitely should've done that. I feel I like I was pretty lucky. Even playing random club rugby and at 6'3 200 I was a scrub compared to a lot of the guys playing. To take them down I had to get dangerously close to some knees that could've given me quite a hit to the head.

So I think the way the players go about tackling is certainly better and safer, but there are constant collisions and scrums where there are elbows, knees, feet and heads all flying around.
 
I also don't get the "what took them so long" on calling the game off discussion. As others have mentioned, there are logistical issues in getting fans/players off the field and home, I'm sure there are multiple levels of chain of command for a decision like this, etc. The whole thing taking an hour or so after they suspended the game doesn't appear at all egregious to me.
 
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Maybe. A couple buddies and I had only played football and joined a club rugby team for a couple years. Two of us learned immediately and never had any problems. You definitely self-preserve better than in football. However, the third guy with us got a concussion within about 10 seconds of his very first game, but he wasn't the brightest guy.

While I think the head to head was really minimized, there were a lot of close calls of guys getting an inadvertent knee to the head. A lot of guys had the soft headgear, which I think was a great idea, and looking back I definitely should've done that. I feel I like I was pretty lucky. Even playing random club rugby and at 6'3 200 I was a scrub compared to a lot of the guys playing. To take them down I had to get dangerously close to some knees that could've given me quite a hit to the head.

So I think the way the players go about tackling is certainly better and safer, but there are constant collisions and scrums where there are elbows, knees, feet and heads all flying around.

Football players should all be taught to tackle with their SHOULDERS, and have their heads behind the ball carrier when tackling at an angle. Basically rugby style. It won't always happen, but the safer tackle will happen more often than not if they are taught properly in practice.
 
I think ESPN should’ve done this, no they should’ve done that, no they should’ve done this, the NFL should’ve done that. How dare the NFL took 10 seconds longer to do this. Why did ESPN use that word instead of this word. They are horrible people and they should be ashamed for the rest of their lives. Am I doing this right?
 
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I found myself yesterday thinking "Come on NFL do something" and "Come on ESPN do something" but then the more I thought about it, I don't blame anyone for the way this was handled.

The NFL league office wasn't the ones who said "You have 5 minutes to get your players regrouped". This was the NFL officials doing the standard thing they always do when there is a serious injury. After talking to the coaches and seeing the circumstances, this didn't come into play.

Yes, it took a little while for the league office to officially come out with a statement and officially stop the game. I'm sure within 15 minutes they had decided that there was no way they were finishing this game. With that said, it's not as easy as "Sorry folks, the park is closed". Communication, handling the crowds leaving the game, were the Bills going to stay there or go home, travel, and about a thousand other things. Taking an extra 1/2 hour didn't do anything to hurt Damar. People were looking for a reason to be pissed.

As far as ESPN, I think they should have just played video of the stadium and not say anything. With that said, people were staying on the channel to hear them talk so if you didn't like what they were saying, turn the channel.
yeah- no one understands that

the whole "NFL is awful only giving 5 minutes!" crowd doesn't understand. The white hate referee has total control of the game. He probably recommended that and then they coaches and him got together and decided something else
 
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This was an important and high level game that the country was looking forward to.

A ton of playoff implications as well.

To just say "Ok, take 5 and get back to it" to heartbroken, devastated players would have been the height of unfairness and been reviled worldwide.