Last night was horrible

[Eagle60]

That poor kid Hamlin of the Bills got hit so hard that he went into cardiac arrest last night. It was sickening to see and the game was postponed. The whole NFL is in shock today and who knows if the teams will even play this weekend? You have to believe that both the Bengals and Bills players have no interest I just hope the poor kid makes it.

[NoDakIggle]

hope the poor kid makes it.

You sure have that right. It might be controlled violence but football is a violent sport. Maybe not the one on one rage that is in MMA but violent nonetheless. There are a 1000+ tackles every week. The potential for serious injury is there in every one of them. While it may be tough to see for fans it has to be brutal for friends and family and teammates to see something as serious as last night.
not sure how they can get that game in but the games will go on; esp if he is on the road to recovery.
gotta throw good vibes toward him and his family

[kyfred]

Terrible, but when I saw it and heard details, I initially assumed he had probably detached his aorta on the hit. Regardless, it is terrible to see. I think I am most concerned about the sedation. Working in the hospital, sedated cardiac patients are typically not with us a long time.

[flyered]

Horrible is right. Prayers for the kid and his family. I still haven’t seen the play - and won’t voluntarily. This happened a couple of times in men’s college lacrosse I think - the ball sometimes hits the chest so hard that it stops the heart. In terms of scheduling, something needs to be done bc the earliest Bengals / Bills can play is tomorrow (Wed), so the earliest they could possibly play their last games would be Monday. I don’t think the whole weekend would be moved tho - too hard logistically.

[Eagle60]

I think they will have Buffalo forfeit the game and maybe even this week's game too. They are already in the playoffs so that won't change too much. It's really the only solution. There is no way that they can mess with the playoffs or the SB. It takes years in advance to schedule.

[flyered]

What if they call it a tie? How does that benefit / hurt these teams and other teams? I can’t see this being a forfeit at a time when the nfl wants to appear human.

[NoDakIggle]

Yea my guess is they are trying to figure out what the ramifications of a tie are. Have to talk to family have to talk to players association have to talk to the owners. Lots of
enda to tie up before you can say something. And that doesn’t even consider that you want to wait to see how he is progressing. It is an absolutely terrible situation for that family and you have to make sure that is your first consideration.

[dawkins20]

Praying for the kid. The hit wasn’t really anything crazy at all. Looked routine. Just shows how fragile life is and how tough sports are. Medical staff at that stadium deserve major kudos.

as for the schedule. There are 2 weeks between conference championships and Super Bowl. There is always the option of pushing things back a week and letting Bills Bengals play after week 18. Then just a week between championships and SB

[andrewaters]

Dawk… I generally agree. I think the hope is that the Bengals-Bills game won’t matter much in seeding but I think that hope is misguided. It’s going to matter and as callous as this sounds it’s unfair to longtime Bills and Chiefs fans not to play that game if it matters at all.

my suggestion would be wait until Sunday and then if it would factor, have the NFC move ahead with the playoffs week 19 and have the Bills and Bengals play.

and then have the NFC pause a week between one of the next two rounds so both teams heading into the Super Bowl have only one week to prepare.

TV builds its basketball schedule around the NFL playoffs. They need some NFL to fill in the gaps but not too much NFL to disrupt the overall sports schedule.

The NFL lucked out with the Chiefs-Raiders game being the first game out of the box. If the Chiefs win the only team getting screwed out of anything then would be the Bills. If the Chiefs lose it opens up both the Bengals and Bills to the one seed.

[Eagle60]

I really doubt that they won't have 2 weeks before the SB, There's just too much money to be lost during the buildup to the game and you know that money talks. Cincy said they're playing Sunday and Buffalo had a walkthrough today. TV plays a huge part in the whole scheduling for the season and probably has the most to say about any changes period. Logic is moot in this situation.

[flyered]

The whole thing is really about emotion. There is nothing that can be done to prevent the kind of freak injury that occurred other than disbanding the NFL. Logic says you address the situation to prevent a recurrence of the terrible situation and then resume the activity. If there is nothing that can be done to prevent or diminish the chances of recurrence, and you are not prepared to stop the activity, then you go on with the schedule because you are implicitly willing to accept the risk. The delay is an understandable attempt to deal with emotion, but logic is not and probably can’t be the driver here.

[musicman]

This game affects gambling, fantasy football and player contracts. There is a lot of money involved. My guess is they play it , somewhere, somehow.

[NoDakIggle]

I’m in the camp that believes they see what happens Sunday and if they need to play the Bills/Bengals game they push the playoffs back a week and still have the super bowl as scheduled. If the game is meaningless to the playoffs they don’t play it and go on with the playoffs