“This is storybook!” veteran CBS caller Jim Nantz bellowed as Nyheim Hines ran 96 yards from the kick-off to score a touchdown for the Buffalo Bills against the New England Patriots on Monday morning (AEDT).
It was the Bills’ first touchdown from a kick-off return in three years, the first points of a match just 14 seconds old, and the first play since their teammate, safety Damar Hamlin, suffered a cardiac arrest during a match six days earlier, requiring CPR on the field to stay alive.
“OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Hamlin tweeted from his hospital bed, where he remains in intensive care. He could’ve added a few more exclamation points.
Sport, you magnificent bastard.
Hines held his arms out as he reached the end zone, precariously clutching the ball in his right hand. He then leapt into the crowd, many of whom carried Hamlin’s jersey number – No.3 – on their face or on placards held above their heads.
On the sideline, some players had tears in their eyes. Others held up three fingers in the freezing air at Orchard Park, the Bills’ home ground which will only get louder and louder as the team makes a Super Bowl run.
Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin.Credit:AP Photo
Nothing about American sport is understated – that’s what makes it fun to watch – but the visceral reaction to the Hamlin incident, then his recovery, has been next-level.
Around the NFL on Monday, rival teams, players and fans showed their respect in various ways. The vision that really hit home was that of grumpy Patriots coach Bill Belichick trudging onto the field wearing a “LOVE FOR DAMAR” jumper under his heavy coat. When “Dolla, Dolla Bill” fires up, it must be special.
Doubts remained on Thursday whether the Buffalo players would be in the right frame of mind to play. Hamlin eventually woke up, told his teammates via FaceTime how much he loved them, and the game was on.
He continued to tweet throughout a gripping final match of the regular season, which the Bills won 35-23, cementing their place as the AFC second seed and ensuring Belichick missed the post-season for just the fourth time in 22 years.
The Bills took the lead in the third quarter when Hines, unbelievably, returned the ball from the end zone to become the first player since Seattle’s Leon Washington in 2010 to score multiple kick-off return touchdowns in the same game. “It’s fate,” Tony Romo said on CBS.
While Hamlin live-tweeted his thoughts to more than half-a-million followers (he had less than 30,000 before his collapse), let’s hope he didn’t kill any time trawling through his newsfeed from the past week or so.
In the sewer of social media, several turds floated to the surface, even around something as emotional as this.
As he received CPR on the field, fighting for his life, arguments sparked about what a cancelled match meant for the play-offs, for the broadcasters, for fantasy football competitions.
Bills fans hold a sign in support of Damar Hamlin at Orchard Park.Credit:AP
Perhaps the dumbest came from Fox Sports’ veteran talking head Skip Bayless, who tweeted: “No doubt the NFL is considering postponing the rest of this game – but how? This late in the season, a game of this magnitude is crucial to the regular-season outcome … which suddenly seems so irrelevant.”
In the face of a savage backlash, Bayless apologised but refused to take down the post.
Then the mob turned on the NFL for taking too long to call off the match, with many reacting to an incorrect report from ESPN that the game was set to resume after a 10-minute warm-up. The NFL denied later in the day this was ever discussed.
By Sunday, the outrage had turned towards ESPN after the broadcaster showed subtle support for Hamlin by flipping the “E” on its microphones to resemble the No.3. “Cringe AF”, posted one fan.
“This is too much,” claimed another. Oh, and many thought the whole thing had become “woke” – the word you go to in the absence of an actual argument, about anything.
The silence as medical staff worked on Hamlin rekindled memories of two heartbreaking incidents in Australian sport: the death of cricketer Phillip Hughes in November 2014 after a bouncer struck him during a Sheffield Shield match at the SCG, and the spinal injury Newcastle Knights back-rower Alex McKinnon suffered in an NRL match against the Storm in March earlier that year.
Like the Hamlin incident, they affected many people. The cricket family reacted by asking us to #putoutyourbats for Hughes. The rugby league family asked us to #riseforalex.
Those movements elicited widespread support, but I vividly remember some labelling it “competitive grieving” and tokenistic.
People can react to tragedy however they want but imagine sledging kindness? Imagine booing love?
They are riding a wave of both in Buffalo, a city that in May suffered a mass shooting that killed 10 people and in December endured a blizzard so devastating it claimed 41 lives.
American football isn’t everyone’s cup of electrolytes. “Too long” is a common refrain, which is interesting because you often hear it from those who are prepared to watch five days of Test cricket without a guaranteed result.
But you don’t have to follow sport to understand the beauty of what’s happening for the Bills, who were title favourites at the start of this season.
“If you want the truth, it was spiritual,” Bills quarterback Josh Allen, fighting back tears, said after full-time. “It was bone-chilling, it was special.”
And it was storybook.
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