NFL: Damar Hamlin tragedy leads to scrutiny over time taken to postpone game

The time it took for the National Football League (NFL) to suspend the game after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered a heart attack on the field against the Cincinnati Bengals came into new focus on Tuesday.

During the first quarter of Monday’s game, Hamlin, 24, stood up after making a tackle on Cincinnati Bengals’ Tee Higgins and then collapsed.

Hamlin left the stadium in an ambulance at 9:25 pm ET and was transported to a Cincinnati hospital where he was listed in critical condition.

The game was officially suspended by the NFL at 10:01 a.m., but fans and former players reacted with outrage online after the previous broadcast said the team would have a five-minute warm-up to prepare to play again.

“What took so long,” retired two-time Super Bowl champion Damien Woody said on Twitter at 9:44 p.m. “Cancel the game!!”

“CANCEL GAME ALREADY,” wrote former first-round quarterback Robert Griffin III five minutes later.

The NFL said there was no discussion about resuming the game and did not know where the broadcaster got its information about the warm-up.

“There’s really no time for players to warm up,” NFL Executive Vice President, Football Operations, Troy Vincent, told reporters.

“Never thought about warming up to continue playing. It’s not ridiculous, it’s not sensitive and it’s not where we should go.

ESPN, which broadcast the game, said there was “constant communication” between ESPN, the league and game officials.

“We are reporting what is being said now and will immediately update fans as new information is learned,” ESPN said in a statement. “This is an unprecedented situation, rapidly developing. Overnight, we refrained from speculation.

The National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) did not immediately respond to a request for comment but said its focus “remains on the health of our brother, Damar Hamlin.”

‘Unprecedented situation’

The league said on Tuesday that the game would not go ahead this week and had not made a decision on whether it could go ahead with the game at another time.

Leigh Steinberg, the sports agent often credited as the inspiration behind the ‘Jerry Maguire’ character, said the shock factor came from underestimating “how physical and dangerous pro football is”.

“A matter of life and death is more important than a football game,” he told Reuters. “But this is the second game of the season, with playoff implications on Monday Night Football. And there’s not a lot of precedent for this.

“The fact that they went ahead and postponed everything, I think it’s good.”

Calling off the game involves high-wire action with various parties in “unprecedented conditions”, said Patrick Sandusky, former head of communications for the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Madison Square Garden.

“Everything seems longer when you watch it in real life,” Sandusky told Reuters. “Because of the complexity and the logistics and everything involved in an unprecedented situation, to have a decision and a unilateral agreement in 30 minutes, I think it’s very fast.

“The important thing is to get it right, not fast and they do both.”

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