by John Walters
The Immaculate Resuscitation
A few thoughts on the scary Damar Hamlin medical emergency, but we are pressed for time this a.m., so much of this may need to be continued later…
°First, here’s hoping and/or praying that Hamlin will be okay. The fact that the Buffalo Bills put out a brief statement in the wee hours saying Hamlin, a second-year safety out of Pitt, had suffered a cardiac arrest but had been revived on the field augurs optimism. He is, after all, in peak physical condition. If he survived the first few dire minutes, you’d have to think his chances are good.
°This situation is not unprecedented. Chuck Hughes, a wide receiver for the Detroit Lions, collapsed on the field versus the Chicago Bears in October of 1971. Hughes died. There is an iconic photo of Dick Butkus looking down at him wondering if he is okay.
°If you visit ESPN.com’s home page right now, there is an embedded video up top of Ryan Clark’s on-air segment with Scott Van Pelt from last night. And the good folks at ESPN have used the pull quote, “This isn’t about a football player. This is about a human.”
Respectfully, no. It’s about both.
Ryan Clark won Twitter last night and that’s fine, but it’s also misguided. Ryan Clark is an ex-NFL player and a man bursting with empathy and pathos, and that’s perfectly fine. But it shouldn’t have been the only item on the buffet spread last night.
First of all, it is about a football player because the entire reason Hamlin’s life was/is in danger last night was almost 100% because of a football play. Also, I’d wager at least 90% of America did not know the name Damar Hamlin before last night. They do this morning because he is a professional football player. Does that make his situation any less grave? No. But then report every single accident victim or fatality this way. People die in unforeseen ways daily. Almost all are not even slightly famous. Does your local news chide you for not appreciating that this isn’t about a single-engine plane crash victim, it’s about a human? Please.
°ESPN/ABC has the rights to the footage from Monday Night Football. At the top of the hour of successive broadcasts, they didn’t even show a replay of the play that most likely induced Hamlin’s cardiac arrest. Was this honestly an executive producer’s decision in Bristol? Or did someone from the NFL warn them not to air it while Hamlin’s life hung in the balance? Either way, shameful. Show it ONCE at the top of the show and move on. There was a hit late in the Cotton Bowl yesterday, three plays before the end of the game, that was far more vicious and looked to have knocked out both players at least temporarily. Football is a brutal game. This was not one of those “look away” hits. It was relatively innocuous. Shame on ESPN for not providing newsworthy footage; that’s your job. It’s not to worry about the feels.
° Frustrated, I turned to CNN who were doing two things that ESPN was diligently avoiding: 1) talking about potential medical explanations, and not recklessly. CNN brought in two emergency room physicians who each were careful to note that while their educated opinions were only speculative, decades of experience seemed to suggest commotio cordis, which is when a blunt force to the chest interrupts the heart’s rhythm and causes cardiac arrest. In the two hours I watched SportsCenter, not a single medical expert appeared. 2) talking about the repercussions for the NFL season. Now, is that not as important as a person’s life? Of course. Is it newsworthy? Absolutely. This wasn’t any game. This was the 12-3 Bills at the 11-4 Bengals and with the way the playoffs now work, with only one team getting a first-round bye, the Bills were playing to clinch a week off when the playoffs begin. The Bengals, with a win, still would have an outside shot if Kansas City were to lose next Sunday. Moreover, when would this game be replayed? These are questions you can be sure the NFL is addressing behind closed doors and CNN had Bob Costas on air. Costas, who has a little familiarity with the NFL, discussed these matters.
Does this mean Bob Costas cares any less about the welfare of Damar Hamlin than anyone at ESPN? Hardly. It just means that he understands what his role is in this situation.
°At some point you must wonder if ESPN’s hands are tied because of its lucrative relationship with the NFL and if ESPN feels that it should never do anything to compromise or upset The Shield. If that’s the case, that’s unfortunate. If the folks at ESPN tell you that it is not the case, then they did a poor job of sports journalism last night. Less prayer circles, guys, and more useful information.
Yes, it’s about a human. But it’s also about WHY he was laying on that field, dead were it not for trained medical professionals and an automated external defibrillator (AED). And it’s about WHAT the NFL is going to do going forward.
Thanks much, ESPN, for the condescending tone of reminding me that every tragedy is a human tragedy. I lifted my head just high enough from my plate of buffalo wings to take in the suggestion. If it weren’t for you, I might’ve only worried about how this event affected my Fantasy team and moneyline bet. So, yeah, God bless you. But maybe next time, do your job.
Football is a tremendously violent sport. And maybe it scores so well with audiences, as Marvel movies do, because it comes off as cartoon violence absent of consequences. Last night was a reminder that that’s not so. The NFL is going to love Ryan Clark, as does ESPN and Twitter, for spinning a narrative about how football is some noble cause in which you fight for more than just yourself as if you’re protecting your country’s constitution. That may be what you tell yourself in the locker room.
The reality is, 1) it’s an adrenaline rush to play and 2) it gives more than a thousand men each year the chance to make a salary that it would take them at least 10 to 20 years to an entire career in almost any other job market to make. And that’s fine. More power to them. They’ve earned it. But no one is rushing the beaches of Normandy or Okinawa here.
It’s awful that Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest on national television. There’s a place for the comments that Ryan Clark made. However, making it the centerpiece of your coverage as the self-appointed World Wide Leader in Sports was journalistic malpractice. And you don’t get to use the excuse that it was after midnight on a Monday night, because that didn’t seem to prevent CNN from doing its job.
