As Damar Hamlin fights for life, Commanders acknowledge, but accept, risks of playing

June 24, 2024

ASHBURN, Va. — The plan, audacious on its face, was nonetheless coming to fruition.

“It’s everything we’ve worked for,” Khaleke Hudson said Wednesday.

“We been had this plan to all be here one day, all be able to go against each other and do good things for our families,” he said. “So it’s such a blessing to see it come true, and see it happen, see Miles and Damar and all the other guys putting on for their families, being able to provide for their family, and putting on for themselves as well. It’s just a true blessing.”

They had grown up together in the Pittsburgh area — Hudson in McKeesport, Pa., Damar Hamlin in McKees Rocks, about 30 minutes apart. They were star players at their respective high schools — Hamlin at Pittsburgh Central Catholic, Hudson at McKeesport High.

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Their mutual friends included Miles Sanders — the elite running back at Woodland Hills High in Churchill, the state’s Mr. Football — who played about 15 minutes from the city; Kenny Robinson, a big-time hitter who played at Imani Christian Academy in Pittsburgh; and Paris Ford, a receiver and defensive back at Steel Valley High.

They were all seniors in 2016, all blue-chip recruits, among the best players to come out of the area. Hudson and Hamlin got so tight that Hamlin tweeted before a visit to Penn State that he and Hudson were a “package deal.”

And they all made it, not just in their various colleges — Hudson and Hamlin wound up at Michigan and Pitt, respectively — but in the NFL. Hudson stuck in Washington as a fifth-round pick in 2020, playing mainly on special teams the last two seasons. Sanders is the Eagles’ star back, just named to his first Pro Bowl after gaining more than 1,200 yards rushing this season. Robinson, after a year in the XFL, signed with the Panthers. Ford didn’t get an NFL job but hooked on with the New Jersey Generals of the new United States Football League They have held a yearly free summer football camp together, on Pittsburgh’s South Side.

And Hamlin had, in his second pro season, become the starting free safety for the Bills, a sixth-round pick who took over in Week 2 this season after starter Micah Hyde was lost for the year with a neck injury. They were all in a regular group chat together.

“Oh, he was excited,” Hudson said of Hamlin. “We were all excited for him. It was a huge opportunity for him, and he seized it. As you can see, he was doing well, starting for weeks, weeks upon weeks. I was very proud of him. I know his family was very proud of him. He was doing what he loved to do, you know what I mean?”

But, now … well, how do you process seeing someone you love collapse on national television, at age 24, and suddenly be fighting for his life?

That’s what Khaleke Hudson saw Monday night, when Damar Hamlin, after a seemingly routine first-quarter tackle of Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins, collapsed, falling on his back to the turf. Hamlin went into cardiac arrest, his heart stopping on the field. Only CPR and a defibrillator immediately used on the Bills’ safety on the field restarted his heart. He remains in critical condition at a Cincinnati hospital, in intensive care, though his vital signs are, slowly, improving.

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“When I seen him fall to the ground, I was in shock,” Hudson said Wednesday. “I didn’t know what to do. After it happened, I was just sitting in the house by myself. I couldn’t say a word, like at all. I was just trying to reach out to his family, trying to reach out to somebody who had any type of information on how he was doing, and what the updates and stuff was. It was a very stressful time for me.

“It’s been getting better. I’ve been getting back some info that he’s doing better and his progress is doing well, and that’s making me feel better each and every day.”

We all know that football, at every level, is violent. Pads protect some body parts, but not all. Improved helmets protect skulls, but not brains. You will get hurt playing football. It is inevitable, unavoidable. But pro football players expect that, train for that. This was, of course, much different.

It obviously hit Bills and Bengals players harder than it did the Commanders, 500 miles from Cincinnati. But these are human beings, including the ones you think stink and need to be traded. Including the coach, who you think should be fired.

They’re bigger and stronger than most everyone else in their lives, except the people who play this most sacrificing of games. It is not a cliche that these guys bleed and suffer for one another. Yes, for the paycheck, but also for one another. Those were real tears Stefon Diggs and other players on both teams shed Monday night. The playoffs, the Bills’ fight for the top seed in the AFC — which included the very Bengals they were playing — weren’t relevant.

But, the Bills will likely suit up and play the Patriots on Sunday. And the Commanders, finishing out their disappointing season, will play the Cowboys. So Hudson, who’s been up on the active roster after starting this season on the practice squad, will answer the call, and move past the “freak accident,” as he put it, that has Hamlin in ICU.

“You don’t wish that on nobody at all,” Hudson said. “Just the support that the whole NFL, as a whole — his teammates, the Cincinnati players and just every other organization — the support has been unbelievable. … This is a life thing. There was a life on the line on that field, two days ago. It’s hard, but I’m just taking it day by day, with the grace of God and prayer every day, just hoping for the best for him.”

Ron Rivera started his news conference Wednesday by offering the organization’s thoughts and prayers to Hamlin’s family, the Bills and the Buffalo area. He said he discussed Hamlin’s injury with the team during its meeting Wednesday morning. The organization’s health care professionals, including Dr. Barbara Roberts, the team’s first full-time director of wellness and clinical services, were available for any players who had questions or concerns.

At least on Wednesday, though, there was no indication that any of the Commanders’ players were thinking about not suiting up against Dallas on Sunday.

“There’s risk in everything you do,” Rivera said. “One of the things that can help mitigate risk is obviously training yourself properly, keeping yourself in top physical shape, mental shape. I think, also, learning your base fundamentals to the nth degree, becoming as good as you can at that. And then, at the same time, you’ve got to sit there and weigh the risks. Because you just never know. It’s crazy, but something like this could happen. And you just don’t know that. But you could also say that about everyday life.”

Thoughts on Damar Hamlin from Curtis Samuel, Terry McLaurin, childhood friend Khaleke Hudson, and Ron Rivera. pic.twitter.com/2meNML7n5U

— Ben Standig (@BenStandig) January 5, 2023

Fear — actual apprehension about suiting up again this weekend, because something catastrophic could happen — just isn’t in the calculus. Or, maybe it is, and it’s well hidden from prying eyes. There’s an understanding that there will be pain, and that you can get hurt. But, fear? No. Still, no.

“Maybe when I first started playing,” tackle Charles Leno Jr. said, thinking back to when he got serious about the game, as a sophomore in high school.

“When you step on a football field, you think, like, it’s a 100 percent injury rate,” Leno said. “You know that. A hundred percent injury rate. But you think of injuries like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna get a sprained ankle. I might tear something. I might break something. Something might happen — concussion, whatever it may be.’ But lose your life? The chances of that, we don’t ever predict that.

“But the fact that (Hamlin’s emergency) happened, and the severity of it, let alone the outreach and the outpouring of everybody around the situation — the Bills, the Bengals, the staff, you’ve got to give all those people credit. They stepped up. Some doctors stepped up, big time. Because, let’s be honest, this happens in sports. It happens in lacrosse, in soccer, in basketball. Baseball, sometimes. This happens.”

I made this analogy to cornerback Kendall Fuller. When you get on a plane, you know that there’s an infinitesimal chance — but, a chance — that something really wrong could happen in the air. But the risk is so small that it’s worth it to take that chance, because it would take you three or four days to drive from here to L.A., but just five or six hours to fly there. You trust that the pilots know what they’re doing, and that there’s enough jet fuel to get you across the country, and you hope the weather won’t be too bad six miles up in the sky.

Is it like that for football players?

“There isn’t a lot of cases, ever in a game, where you see somebody playing the game, and from something from the game, they’re fighting for their life,” Fuller said. “At least for me. I’m not going to speak for everybody. I’ll talk to my brother (Ravens cornerback Kyle Fuller), and he might have had a different perspective on it. But, for me, you don’t see guys from a game, from playing football, fighting for their life. I definitely understand the analogy, but I think it’s a little different in terms of playing football.

“Injuries and stuff like that, even serious injuries, you know you’re risking that. But I think it’s a little different from being on a plane.”

You’re so out of your depth talking to pro athletes, no matter the sport. Their confidence — hubris, sometimes — and their belief in themselves is just so much greater than what many of us have in ourselves. They are physically stronger, mentally tougher. They are playing a game, yes, but it’s a very complicated version of the game we played in the street, or in high school, or on our company’s softball team. It does not make them better or worse people; these are admirable traits in some cases, not so much in others.

But what is unassailable is that as the game takes from so many, so many more are ready to step in, take their place, next man up.

Hudson just hopes he can get to Cincinnati early next week, and see the guy he knows so well.

“He’s a stand-up guy, always been my friend forever, ever since we started getting into recruitment and all that,” Hudson said of Hamlin. “That’s been one of my close friends since I can remember. Since it happened, I’ve been praying for him every second of the day, and he’s been coming across my mind like all day. I can’t get him off my mind. I’m just worried about him and hoping he keeps progressing in the right way, and everything comes back with good news.”

(Photo: Lon Horwedel / USA Today)

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