NFL - NEWS & NOTES

Damar Hamlin’s family says “progress appears to be made”



The information regarding the status of Bills safety Damar Hamlin continues to be limited. But the limited information from this morning is encouraging.

Via Coley Harvey of ESPN.com, Hamlin family friend and spokesman Jordon Rooney said that doctors got “promising readings” overnight regarding Damar, and that “progress appears to be made.”


Damar Hamlin remains sedated and in critical condition at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. He suffered cardiac arrest during Monday night’s game between the Bills and Bengals.

PFT



Sounds like a small ray of hope and thats a good thing.

 

Wow, I'd have never known. That's piss poor. So Arthur Smith is the douche he appears to be on television?

 

So, the League is considering using a random number generator of some sort to determine seeding after this week's games. It might simply be a coin toss on the result of the game for seeding, but the game is no-contest. If the Ravens beat the Bengals then it will matter for the division. Only way it won't matter is if the Bills win, Chiefs lose, and Ravens and Bengals Tie.

 

It's my birthday and I've got a ham in the smoker. Dog got to the one at Christmas after the meal so no leftovers. Felt bad.

 

Willie always the MVP, around here.

So, let's just make sure we're on the same page about all this - the NFL was ABSOLUTELY originally considering having the players resume after a brief break. How could they not? It would have avoided all this mess. They always resume play after injuries. Now, maybe Troy Vincent wasn't considering it, but that doesn't mean other higher-ups weren't. Let's stop making a "thing" out of this - the NFL is doing everything they can to save face and to get out of this incident looking as good as possible, and they'll happily point fingers / obfuscate if they feel they need to.

The NFL eventually came to the right decision. It doesn't mean there weren't conversations to get to that point that involved other answers, and honestly, that's okay. The right thing happened eventually, however we all got there.

 

I agree 100%

I think the reaction was due to the hatred the league was getting from the "5 minute warmup" report. Nowhere does it mention ESPN was told about the warmup, only a possible resumption of the game. Playing Devil's advocate, They showed a picture of Burrow throwing the ball as the report was announced. Anyone think they saw him warmup and automatically reported the normal 5 minute warmup after an extended delay, without actually hearing that from the league?

I would think it to be very practical in this situation that the league doesn't make a rash decision on postponing the game without all relevant information available. Taking an hour to gather all that information is also within the realm of possibility.

I take more issue with the reports coming out and no relative information to back it up.

Someone like Skip Bayless, who's was so distasteful should be reprimanded by his employer. Other's that had the video on a loop on Twitter as well. Honestly, I thought ESPN did an OK job with the aftermath and filling the air when all people wanted was an update. But, I really think they should have moved to other programming with intermittent updates, even if there was no information to update. It was very awkward for the hosts, who were also witness to the incident live. Trauma comes in many stages and asking them to fill air time really was unnecessary.

 

You can argue about changed times but the league did complete the jets vs lions game in 97 after the Mike Utley injury. Mike was given cpr and one player said Utley turned blue. Stories say the game resumed after 20 minutes but not sure if that was 20 minutes after he was removed from the field or 20 minutes after play stopped. Utley is what popped into my head as soon as I watched the injury. Not because it was the same injury mind you but due to the severity.

 

NFL announces Ravens-Bengals will kick off at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday



The NFL has finalized its Week 18 schedule, with Ravens-Bengals kicking off at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday.

The league announced the kickoff time for Ravens-Bengals today. Previously, the plan was for the game to kick off at 1 p.m. if the Bengals beat the Bills on Monday night, and at 4:25 p.m. ET if the Bills beat the Bengals on Monday night. But when Bills-Bengals was halted after Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field Monday, it was unclear what the league would do.


It’s still unclear how that Bills-Bengals game will be handled in the standings, or whether the NFL will somehow change the postseason schedule to allow the Bills-Bengals game to be played.

If the NFL ultimately decides to cancel Bills-Bengals, the Bengals will win the AFC North regardless of the results of Sunday’s game against the Ravens. If the Bengals were to lose to the Ravens and then the league decides to alter the postseason game and finish the Bills-Bengals game, then the Bengals would need to win that game to win the AFC North.

All other games on the Week 18 schedule will kick off at their previously announced times, the league has confirmed.

PFT

 

Troy Vincent doesn’t rule out postponement of Patriots-Bills game



The NFL still hasn’t decided whether, or when, the Week 17 game between the Bills and Bengals will resume. There’s another dilemma potentially looming for the league.

During a Wednesday afternoon conference call regarding the Damar Hamlin situation, NFL executive V.P. of football operations Troy Vincent didn’t rule out the possibility of postponing the Week 18 game between the Patriots and the Bills, if Bills players and coaches aren’t ready to proceed.


“We have not had that discussion,” Vincent said regarding the possibility of postponing the Buffalo game. “It’s really important that we just keep the pulse of the coach and the players, and don’t get in front of that. And we’ll allow Sean [McDermott] and his team and his staff and his players, which are the most important thing here, to guide this, if we have to make that decision collectively with the club.”

On one hand, it would be very hard to envision the Bills not playing on Week 18, when they quite possibly will never finish their Week 17 game. On the other hand, it’s impossible to expect the Bills players and coaches to proceed, if they aren’t ready to play.

Really, who would expect them to? They experienced a trauma that may not heal to the point at which they can properly gather themselves and play football again only six days later. If they can process their feelings and properly and safely perform, that’s great. If they can’t, that’s a decision that someone will have to make at the appropriate time.

Time continues to be the key word. As Steve Miller said, time keeping on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future. At some point, time makes decisions for you.

PFT

 

The NFL announced on Wednesday that talks have begun on whether to resume Week 17's Bills-Bengals game, which was postponed after Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest during the first quarter of the game.

During a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, NFL EVP of communications, public affairs and policy Jeff Miller said the league has not made a decision on the status of the game but plans to in the coming days, adding that both the Bengals and Bills would be consulted.

NFL EVP of football operations Troy Vincent said during the call that "everything is being considered" regarding the Bills-Bengals game. Vincent said the league will lean on the guiding principles it used during the 2020 and 2021 seasons with the COVID-19 pandemic, including the "value of winning and winning percentage" in order to give Commissioner Roger Goodell suggestions on how to proceed if the game were not to be resumed.

According to NFL Research, the following playoff-clinching scenarios are in play if the Bills-Bengals game is canceled:

• Bengals clinch AFC North, but would not have a path to the No. 1 seed and home-field advantage (Ravens cannot clinch division even if they beat Bengals in Week 18 because an 11-5 Cincinnati team would best an 11-6 Baltimore).
• Chiefs can clinch the AFC's No. 1 seed with a win Saturday (Chiefs would be the only team capable of reaching 14 wins).
• Chiefs would also clinch the No. 1 seed if the Bills lose vs. the Patriots in Week 18.
• Bills can clinch the No. 1 seed with a win vs. the Patriots + a Chiefs loss at the Raiders in Week 18.
• Bengals can clinch the No. 2 seed with a win vs. the Ravens + a Bills loss vs. the Patriots in Week 18 (would go to strength of victory tiebreaker).

The Bills, who announced Wednesday afternoon that Hamlin remains in critical condition with signs of improvement, returned to practice earlier in the day for the first time since the harrowing incident. They are scheduled to host the Patriots on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET. NFL Network Insider Tom Pelissero reported Wednesday there is no discussion of not playing the game as scheduled.

The league also confirmed the full Week 18 schedule on Wednesday, including the official start time for the Ravens-Bengals game (1 p.m. ET), which had previously been undetermined.

NFL.com

 

I am totally and utterly confused

 

lol... join the club. I tend not to think/dwell on it... Ima just let the chips fall where they may.

 

I think the league needs to move the Chiefs raiders game to the same time as the Bills game. This way nobody knows their fate when their perspective games start. The Chiefs win Saturday and everyone loses their incentive Sunday.

 

Raiders winning Saturday is in the fucking bag…easiest way out for Goodell. Pound the over on number of accepted penalties for the Chiefs.

 

But then the Bengals feel screwed. The way the game started before the injury it sure looked like they were going to slap the Bills down and own the tiebreaker against both the Bills and Chiefs.

 

The other teams (Steelers, Dolphins, Jets) should have taken care of business and not been reliant on what other teams did. Steelers in particular shot themselves in the foot starting 2-6. I completely expect the Bills to lose, which sucks for the Steelers but no way in hell will the Bills minds be on football 6 days after seeing their teammate on the field getting CPR. And thats human. no way could these men go through what they do and see a brother die on the field and need to be resuscitated and they shake it off and put their full effort into the game and block that out. I know I wouldn’t be able to step on to that field less than a week later and the thought of me or someone else dying on that field running through my mind. I hope he pulls through, been encouraging news with every update.

 

Saw Zac Taylor’s press conference, and I have to say I have a lot of respect for that guy. Extremely classy and sincere.

The person I’d like an update on is Tee Higgins. What’s going through his mind now? Bart Scott tried to put some blame on him for the hit.

 

Tee Higgins got tackled, he didn’t do anything to hurt Hamlin.