Prayers For Damar Hamlin

Fandom Gets a Dose of Real-World Perspective

It’s typical for us to lose our minds when watching a football game. Honestly, we often lose our decorum, general sense of decency and our tempers when plugged into a game. Heck, with the access to online gambling, it’s getting easier and easier to lose our metaphorical shirts when watching sports these days, as well.

And perspective?

Oh, perspective disappears once you align yourself with a logo or player and forsake all others.

But perspective in fact landed on our heads with a sobering thud Monday night as Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin stood up after what looked to be an innocuous collision like so many millions before it, took a step back and collapsed to the ground. First-responders rushed to his aid and administered CPR as a worldwide audience watched in stunned disbelief before he was whisked away to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center — his life seemingly in the balance as the players on the field reacted with horror and helplessness etched upon their collective faces.

It mattered not that this was one of the most highly-anticipated Monday Night Football games in the program’s history, or that playoff implications were aplenty in this matchup of AFC heavyweights. No, those things became, well, not exactly “secondary” — they became outright moot.

It just didn’t matter anymore.

Praying for Damar Hamlin pic.twitter.com/Pxo4kIu0Gb

— Saint Donis (@saintdonis) January 3, 2023

Look, football fans agree on very little. Heck, Ravens fans agree on very little amongst themselves and they supposedly have a fairly significant common interest. But just about everything I saw on social media while this nightmare was taking place in front of the world was unity behind concern for Hamlin’s immediate and long-term health, and a resolute agreement that the game should not go on.

Not in five minutes. Not in an hour. Not at all on Monday night.

Perspective hit, and it hit in the hardest of ways. We didn’t need anybody to point out that this situation was “bigger than football,” or that the playoff scenarios and seedings and what-have-you. could get sorted out later. We all knew. At least, those of us not named Skip Bayless, knew.

We knew that football, while fun, is a game. We knew that any dislike or perceived hatred any of us might have towards the Bills or Bengals or their fans was really just a “sports thing.” Nobody cared about allegiances anymore, outside of a shared sense of empathy and concern for this young man whose very mortality was being brought into question as we watched.

And we should continue to watch as Hamlin receives treatment for what doctors have said is a cardiac arrest. We should continue to shower down prayers upon the young man, his family and his medical professionals, and we should keep that focus on him without simply shaking our heads, saying “it’s too bad this happened” and moving on to the next shiny object that captures our attention.

We’re football fans, all of us. And this is one of the finest football players on the planet — the rare less-than-1-percenter who made his way onto an NFL roster. But even more importantly, he’s a person that we’ve all watched go through a horribly traumatic experience in the most public of ways possible.

We’re all pulling for you, Damar Hamlin.

May you win this battle and live a long, healthy life with people you love.

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