Front Burner - Damar Hamlin: the NFL’s money, violence and responsibility

Episode Date: January 6, 2023

During a high-profile Monday Night Football game this week, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin made a tackle that nearly ended his life, live, in front of millions of people tuned into the TV broadcast. Hamlin was resuscitated after medical staff applied CPR. He was taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical Centre where he has remained in critical condition. According to today's guest, Jerry Brewer, national sports columnist with the Washington Post, the tackle barely ranked on the scale of how brutal the game can be. He says team owners and the league need to do more to provide immediate and long term healthcare for players.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. On Monday night, millions and millions of people tuned in to a high-stakes game between the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals. People expected a tough matchup. They did not expect this. Now another Bills player is down.

After what seemed like a routine tackle during the first quarter of the game, DeMar Hamlin collapsed. Not what any of us want to see and everybody's around him. A tackle that would send 24-year-old Bills safety DeMarlin, into cardiac arrest on the field during an internationally televised broadcast. Hamlin was fighting for his life. He still is. In the days since, the NFL and team owners have faced intense anger and renewed scrutiny about player safety, equity, and the long-term damage caused by a fundamentally violent sport. I'm going to go through all of this today with Jerry Brewer. He's a national sports columnist with The Washington Post. Hi, Jerry. Thank you so much for coming on to FrontBurner. It's great to have you. Thanks for having me, Jamie. It's great to talk to you.

I wonder if you could start by taking us back to that stadium in Cincinnati on Monday. You were watching on TV. What did you see? Yeah, you're in Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati, and you're expecting one of the great NFL games of the year. Two fabulous quarterbacks, Joe Burrow versus Josh Allen. The game is 7-3. You just see this routine play. I mean, it happens dozens of times in any game, hundreds of times a weekend in the NFL. Wide receiver catches a pass short safety comes up to make the tackle wide receiver has to play with force so that he doesn't get uh knocked over and knocked around by the safety so he kind of lowered his shoulder uh hit the the would-be tackler uh which

happened to be DeMar Hamlin DeMar Hamlin corrals him and throws him to the ground. DeMar Hamlin gets up and then DeMar Hamlin drops like a stone. And you knew it was bad when you just saw that. But then for the next half hour before he was driven away off the field, before he was driven away off the field, you saw the tears of the players, you saw the looks of horror, you saw how eerily silent the stadium was. And for me, someone who's covered sports for more than 20 years,

I'm trying to process it thinking, I've never seen anything like this on national television. Tell me more about how it played out on national television. How did the broadcast handle the incredible gravity of this situation? I described it as painful yet meaningful. They did not hide their emotions. They did not hide their struggle to find words. They sat vigil until there was clarity on whether the game would continue to be played. And really, for the past several days, they've sat vigil as we've tried to figure out how DeMar Hamlin is doing. figure out how DeMar Hamlin is doing.

And it's been one of those moments that I haven't seen often in sports. On some level, it reminds me a little bit of the emotions and the humanity that was displayed and the shock that people had when Kobe Bryant passed three years ago. But you're talking about a death and you're talking about a totally different incident. This being an active player and this happening on television in the NFL, by far America's most popular sport, it's just incredibly jarring.

And there truly is no playbook for how to proceed. And I think people have acted, instead of pretending that there is a playbook, they've really leaned into that. And I think it's really made this vulnerable, really humanistic type of storytelling that has been worthwhile, even though it has been difficult to watch. That has been worthwhile, even though it has been difficult to watch. Welcome back to Cincinnati, where medical personnel have been working on Bill's safety, Damar Hamlin, for the last nine minutes. Hamlin made a hit. He got up, took a couple of steps, and then just fell to the ground. We don't know, of course, the extent of his injuries, but the entire Bill's team is out on the field right now.

Several players are down on their knees. Other players are holding hands, praying. You can just see the worried looks on their faces. What do we know about how DeMar is doing right now? I have very few details. It's a little bit different than when a player suffers an injury on the field and he's more under the guidance, that maybe he's not in a situation where death feels imminent. He's been able to open his eyes. He's been able to squeeze the hands of his loved ones,

but he's still intubated. And there's no understanding of what that play did to his brain, the lasting effect to his heart, you know, any of that. So it very much is the epitome of critical condition. Yeah. As you said, you've never seen anything like this before. But football is a violent game, right? Injuries are beyond common. And I wonder if you could paint me a picture, a kind of run-of-the-mill injury menu in a football season. What do we normally see? You see dozens and dozens of concussions, brain injuries. I mean, that's common every week.

You go to an NFL game and they announce when players are taken off the field and what they're being evaluated for, and at least four or five times a game, it feels like a player is being evaluated for a concussion. You hear them announce knee injuries and shoulder injuries and neck stingers and all of these things. Pretty much anything you can do to a body. Broken legs are incredibly common. Broken ankles, broken collarbones, all of those things it's just common i think that's that's what was really jarring we're used to medical people running out onto the field and carting players away and then there's just a little bit of a brief break and then you resume playing we had never seen a game have to be suspended in modern NFL history because a player suffered an injury so bad that it was just inappropriate to continue to play. That's just the constant churn

and almost the human disposability of the sport is something that is so expected uh just so common in the game uh then it's terrifying when you step back and you think about it yeah and i want to talk a bit later about whether you think the league has taken this for granted this idea that people have become sort of inured to the violence and if they're doing enough to support these players. But you mentioned concussions. Of course, there has been huge controversies around concussions in the NFL and other sports as well. And we actually don't have to look very far for a very scary example of this, right? This hit taken by the Miami Dolphins quarterback to a Tego-Vailoa this season. And what happened there?

Yeah, that was, I thought, was the injury incident that would define this season. And this one, there are some freakish nature to what happened to DeMar Hamlin. But with Tua, highly preventable. They had played a game on Sunday in which it was pretty clear to anyone who had watched that Tua had suffered a concussion. But for whatever reason, what happened didn't rise to the level of him being automatically put in the NFL concussion protocols. So they just looked at it and they described it as just kind of a stumble because of something else, not the brain. And he was able to continue and finish the game.

The Miami Dolphins had to play four days later on Thursday night football because he wasn't in the concussion protocol. It was a very clean way for them to get him back on the field for that Thursday night game. He gets hit, his head slams into the turf, and you see him in what they call the fencing position, when your hands are just kind of stuck and frozen over your face. That was incredibly scary. To a rolling left. With the grain and down he goes. Slung down in his own 48-yard line.

Josh Tupou. And uh-oh. Well, we saw last week and he went down, he got up, was wobbly. It's so scary to watch this, yeah. That led to this immediate action between the nfl and the nflpa to revise some of those concussion protocols so that there wouldn't be a loophole that would allow someone who everyone else clearly said something was wrong with him and it could be a concussion for them not to circumvent that and put him back on the field. But that I think is the most depressing situation of the year. And since then, Tua's had more concussion issues.

And so you're talking about a lot of brain trauma for one of the promising young quarterbacks in the NFL. young quarterbacks in the NFL. Just remind me how the NFL got to the point where we're talking about concussion protocols. You know, as we said, concussions have been a serious issue in pro football. Maybe some of our listeners saw the movie with Will Smith. Repetitive head trauma chokes the brain. The NFL does not want to talk to you. repetitive head trauma chokes the brain.

The NFL does not want to talk to you. You turned on the lights and gave their biggest boogeyman a name. And how have concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, played out in the NFL? I guess starting around 94, right? Which is when the league created its mild traumatic brain injury committee. Right. And, you know, it's been almost 30 years, but it really feels like it's been almost 10 years, 15 max, that people have really taken this seriously. And as CTE has become more prevalent, as players have died and had their

brains examined and doctors have determined that they did suffer that trauma while playing football, I think it's become more common. But we have to also remember the NFL has fought its culpability for this. And I don't think it's ever made the players whole in the way that it should be. And we bring up CTE a lot because I think it's really important to understand just how callous the NFL can be in terms of rules. in terms of rules, and they changed helmets, and they have added penalties and punishments for fines and so on and so forth for helmet-to-helmet hits and those kinds of things to make the game less violent, to make it a little bit safer in terms of the equipment that they have.

But you're never going to take the danger out of football. It's a physical game. It's not a contact sport. It is a collision sport. Every play, multiple people are colliding into each other with maximum force. you can do, I think, is your safety guard rails always have to be constantly evaluated and improved. And you have to have a mindset that you're going to go above and beyond to take care of your players who play this violent game while they're playing it, while they're on a team, and for the rest of their lives. And when you peel back all the layers of the NFL, And when you peel back all the layers of the NFL, they do an absolutely terrible job of devoting the resources to making sure these players who play this violent game have their medical needs tended to for the rest of their lives. Tell me more about that, because I know this has been something that a lot of people have been talking about since the incident earlier this week with DeMar. And then also it's been reignited after the two Tego-Vailoa incidents as well, right? Yes. No, for one, you're not insured for life after playing in the NFL, And you have to cross a certain threshold of time

before you're vested into a health insurance plan that really lasts only five years. They do have kind of lifetime disability insurance and those kinds of things. But it's incredibly complicated. And who qualifies for what? If you just listen to retired players, they'll always tell you that it's incredibly complicated and who qualifies for what uh if you just listen to retired players they'll always tell you that it's not enough and you have to go through tremendous paperwork

and just hassle in order to see if you qualify for people that you think should qualify for some of this assistance don't uh let's not forget that the nfl is is less than a year elude from settling a race norming uh lawsuit you know in which you're you're arguing that um the brains of of black players are are lesser uh than their white counterparts, and therefore they don't deserve the same quality of assistance. It makes you really concerned about football because, once again, you can only make football so safe. But I think you have a moral right to take care of the people who play the game, who've laid the groundwork for this to be a multi-billion dollar business. And there's money always there. The money is always there because when they're put

in the situation in which they have to pay up or really lose, they come up with hundreds of millions of dollars at the drop of a hat. Right. The NFL brought in something like $18 billion in revenue in 2021, right? Like these teams are worth on average well over $4 billion. Do you think this idea that you hear people say, well, these players know what they're getting into, that they're well paid, that it absolves the league or the owners of responsibility? Well, on one hand, they are grown men who made a conscious decision. And so you don't want to

be paternalistic towards protecting them. On the other hand, we have this misconception that everybody who plays in the NFL is a multimillionaire and set up for life. The reality is most of them are like DeMar Hamlin. DeMar Hamlin's a six round pick, signs a four year contract. These contracts are not fully guaranteed. He's probably netted half a million million dollars just two seasons in the NFL. So you're talking about a guy who is going to net a million dollars, let's say, a little bit more than that for his first contract. Depending on how he continues to develop, he may be a guy who gets

a second contract or he may be one of the overwhelming majority who that's their career. They're in and out of the league in three or four years. This is if he were healthy. It's highly unlikely that he's going to come back and play after this incident. And so he's not set up for life. That's the rank and file of the NFL. When we think about the NFL, we think about Patrick Mahomes and his $450 million. Most of the players in the league don't have that. Now, if you ask them, is it worth it to them? They would say yes, because football has allowed

them to get education, to have a better life. However, you have to remember that in these 53 man rosters, and so there's more than 1600,600 players on active rosters in the NFL, the overwhelming majority of them are not going to make enough money to live their entire lives playing football. And like you said, the coverage of benefits is also way more complicated than people might think. So it's possible that DeMar Hamlin has health issues that he's going to need to be cared for for a long time. And those bills might start really adding up for him and his family. And there's no system in place, Jamie, that guarantees that he's going to be taken care of.

There's no system in place, Jamie, that guarantees that he's going to be taken care of. Now, maybe the Pagoula family that owns the Buffalo Bills, maybe out of the goodness of their hearts, knowing the trauma that they experience and that the franchise experience just decides we're going to find a way to take care of him for life. But other organizations wouldn't do that. And so the system is flawed. And there's a lot of nameless, faceless people who didn't suffer nearly as traumatic injuries, but who have trouble moving around, might have trouble walking, might have trouble rising every day, can't really have an ordinary job

because of what they gave their bodies to. Yet they're 25 years old and they got to provide for themselves and for their family. And they can't. And all those people just get lost in the cracks. Thank you. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you.

Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Cups. I don't know if you saw this, but I watched this clip that was making the rounds from the Cleveland Sports Show. Host Garrett Bush was, he was really angry about all of this.

Hey, it was such an impassioned take. He went so far as to say the league was being operated like a criminal enterprise. I like the NFL just like the rest of y'all, but I'll be damned if I'm going to sit up there and pat Roger Goodell on the back for running this organization the way he does. They run it like a criminal organization. It was powerful because you hear those conversations often when you're just talking to players in the locker room or you come across retired players in the press box. And you just say, I'm not quoting on you, you on this. Give me an honest picture of how you really feel about the NFL.

And you often hear that that is run like a mafia family. feel about the NFL. And you often hear that that is run like a mafia family. We think about this league and we think of it as one entity, but it's 32 that function as one. And it's a very decentralized league. And we put a lot of things on Roger Goodell, the commissioner, as if he is the almighty power of the league. He's not. He's in service of owners who do whatever they want to do. And that they've been highly resistant of being policed too much to do the right thing. And so the league is constantly having to work around ownership in order to get things done. Ownership in order to get things done. And a lot of NFL teams operate like mom and pop shops that just happen to rake in billions because America is so obsessed with the sport, not because they're so great at business.

Why is America so obsessed with the sport? Do people turn to it because of its violent side? about the United States of America is represented in football. It really is. The best of football, it teaches you discipline. There's teamwork. The fact that so many men have to come together and operate and function as one, it teaches you persistence, all of those things. But beneath all of that, I think the attraction to it ultimately is you see just these superb athletes who tear into each other.

And the more physical, the better. We celebrate the violent hits as long as someone gets up, right? Like you love it you know you used to see all the time somebody coming across the middle and the middle linebacker or the strong safety just knocks the the guy out to jar the ball loose you know you hear these stories of players i believe ronnie lott maybe the greatest safety in in NFL history, just like chopped off part of a finger because he had a broken finger and he wasn't going to get to play. He's like, I don't need that finger. Oh, my God.

It's gone. Just so he could keep on playing and just all the things that guys do to continue on. And so I think there's this, it feels, you know, And so I think there's this, it feels, you know, patriarchy is just so strong in America and just this sense of, you know, what it really means to be masculine, which is often fake, but football reinforces that. And let's also remember, it's a game in which people are fighting to defend or acquire land that's chalked up on a field. If that's not American history, what is? The fight over territory. So I think there's just so many things. And then you add the fact that the NFL, as its marketing machine, has tied it to everything Americana, including patriotism and the military and all of those things. It just has a stranglehold on American society, unlike any sport we've ever known.

You've mentioned a few times in this conversation, and I'm sorry, I feel like this is really going to show my colors that I'm not a huge football watcher we joke on the show that it's a news podcast but it's also a raptors a low-key raptors podcast um uh but but like you you've said a few times that um there's not much to be can be done to make the game safer is that because of the culture around it? Like, would it be possible to make them hit each other less, to make the sport less violent? I think you're constantly re-evaluating that. And they've done a tremendous number of things to limit contact. I mean, you think about, you know, kickoffs aren't the same as what they used to be they've they've limited what you can

do there and there's a lot of other areas where where they've tried but fundamentally it's gonna be a violent physical game and there's really nothing that you're going to be able to do to fundamentally change that and keep people attentive. But what you can do is you can take care of the people who play the game. Don't force them back on the field when you know they're not right and make sure that you have exacting standards for health and safety and not just standards that meet the moment and that satisfy the public just enough so everybody will keep quiet and going back to enjoy the game. It has to be better than that. And until the league realizes that,

it's going to continue to have problems. After the incident with DeMar Hamlin, you wrote that this time the violence could not be minimized. And I just wonder, obviously you are a fan of the game, even with his problems, right? And you cover this sport. And does an incident like this one we saw on Monday night make you rethink your own relationship with it? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think the CTE scandal really made me reevaluate some things. I have a personal hypocrisy that I acknowledge about.

that I acknowledge about loving football. I dislike a lot of the things the NFL as an enterprise does. I love the athletes, and I love watching games. And to be honest, so much of my career as a sports columnist, I owe to covering football. my career as a sports columnist, I owe to covering football is probably 60% of the job because that is where so much interest in conversation lies. But I'm someone who, while I'm doing that for the majority of my days, I'm also adamant that my children will never play the game. Huh, interesting. And I don't force them to watch the games when I'm watching them. And they're 10 and 7, and they're kind of at that age in which I probably could influence them to watch more.

But I'd rather watch basketball, watch baseball, watch Seattle Kraken hockey, watch tennis, anything besides football. And so I'm someone who covers it darn near every day. But if my job did not entail covering football, to be honest with you, I would not watch it religiously. Jerry, thank you so much for this conversation. It was really interesting and such a pleasure to listen to you. Thank you very much. Before we go, I want to mention this GoFundMe thing. Around Christmas, DeMar Hamlin was doing an annual toy drive fundraiser.

What's up? It's DeMar Hamlin, back at the hometown, back at the crib. Third annual toy drive, man. We're doing it for the kids. His goal was to raise $2,500. The GoFundMe link was still active when this whole thing happened on Monday, leading to a crazy surge in donations. As I record this, the fundraiser has brought in more than $7 million. All right, that is all for this week. Front Burner was produced this week by Lauren Donnelly, Derek VanderWijk, Rafferty Baker, Matt Cameron, and Allie James. Our sound design is by Sam McNulty and Julia Whitman.

Our music is by Joseph Shabison. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Locos, and I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you next week. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.