The Fumblerooski Podcast - Prayers out to Damar -Ep 148 The Fumblerooski Podcast

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

The Fumblerooski Podcast sends our thoughts and prayers toward Bills Safety Damar Hamlin and offers our deepest condolences to his friends and family. Adam Wright and Justin Tucker reflect on the horrific event which took place on Monday Night Football.

The Fumble Rooski podcast joins the NFL world in sending our thoughts and prayers towards Bill's safety, DeMar Hamlin. And we also want to offer our deepest consolances to his family as they deal with this tragedy. No matter what, we all want him to be okay. You're listening to the Fumble Rooski podcast by Power 88 and Secret Weapon Consulting. I'm Adam Wright with Justin Tucker. No CJ tonight. He was going to be with us, but his Wi-Fi copped out again. But as I mentioned, you guys might have seen on our story, we have moved all of our football content besides uh the damar hamlin story um to at least friday and i don't think we're going to talk anything else until we know what's going um

until we are we confirm um that hamlin is all right um or at least just receive any updates um but we are going to only cover that and so we are going to split it in a few different uh sections so first we're going to talk about just our basic reflections on what just happened because it was a lot i mean it was a lot. I mean, it was a really, really scary event that just happened with this young kid. And then we're going to touch on the league's handling of the situation, kind of reflect on that. Did the league do it properly last night? We're going to talk about ESPN's coverage of the situation, and then we're going to finish off with talking about what

the league will do moving forward to handle this issue. But to start things off, if you guys have, most of you guys already know this already. But if you haven't, we'll cover it. We got you covered. So Bill's safety, DeMar Hamlin, went unconscious after tackling Bengals wide receiver T. Higgins on a play. The game was indefinitely suspended soon after. So it's already been confirmed that it will not be rescheduled this week. According to his agent, Hamlin's vitals were restored and he was put to sleep with sedative. And that was the last update on his health that we have received. So we haven't gotten anything since then. That was last night. It's been officially reported that he he suffered cardiac arrest uh and the heartbeat was restored on the field uh but cj just look excuse me uh talk um looking at this situation

like when like as you were watching this all unfold like what was like what were the thoughts that were going through your head? What were you thinking? To be honest, when I was going through the situation, I didn't understand how severe the situation was until I heard that he wasn't responding and they had to resuscitate his heart. That's when I thought, yeah, this is serious. I'm thinking it's just a regular bang-bang play. I'm thinking I need the Bills to do well. I need the Bengals to lose.

I'm thinking like every other sports fan trying to enjoy the game, and then all of a sudden he doesn't respond. I'm thinking it's just a regular injury, no harm, no foul. But as it came out more and more, it wasn't just a regular injury. And I was shocked. as it came out more and more, it wasn't just a regular injury. And I was shocked. I wasn't fully prepared nor fully aware of the situation. And the moment that happened, I was like, damn, I hope he's okay.

Because I've never, in my lifetime, I've never seen a situation like that. And so when i saw it kind of like stunned me and shocked me and kind of made me nervous for for his health and so thankfully they will they were able to restore his heart and hopefully he'll be able to make a full recovery from it and still be able to do most things in life but i was shocked when i first heard the news yeah i'm gonna be like when i first saw this situation i immediately thought back to the lions defensive back from earlier on in the season um i i'm and i'm forgetting his name um but he collapsed on the field,

but he eventually woke up, and the game eventually, you know, it eventually continued as scheduled. It was, what, maybe 10, 15 minutes before the game resumed again. So I thought it was something like that. I didn't think it was that big of a deal at first, but then I heard that they were giving him CPR. And that was when I realized, oh my, this is getting real now. And this kid's life is actually in danger. And it still is.

I mean, the guy still, he needs a breathing tube. And he does have a heartbeat that was restored. For the most part, his vitals are good. He's still in critical condition. But upon hearing that situation, I didn't realize the severity right away because I've never seen anything like this, not even not just in football but in any sport we've never seen a potential a potential death and like looking at that and like i just thought like are we are we actually going to see somebody actually die on the field?

Because we've only seen that. So I'll allude to it again later on in the show, but it's only happened once. It was back in 1971, a Lions wide receiver died on the field. And that's the only time anything like this has happened. And Carson Palmer, a few years ago, predicted somebody is going to die on the field. And I thought, that's what I thought about right away. As soon as I realized the severity, I thought, are we going to, are we actually like, did we just witness something of this magnitude already? And I think it says a lot about how serious this was that a game of this magnitude,

so one of the most anticipated matchups in possibly in regular season NFL history, one of them, it could have been up there. That turned into, in everyone's mind in all of our minds it turned into an afterthought and that just told me so like it wasn't just some some regular not that exciting matchup like this is like this was nfl fans alike were all crowding around to their TVs. This was going to be must-see TV. And it turned into a nightmare for everyone. And another way I wanted to look at this, at least to tell you guys as an audience. So Ryan Clark gave this angle.

And that got me thinking a little bit. These players are living out their dreams, especially DeMar Hamlin. He's stepping in for Pro Bowl safety, Micah Hyde, and is not only making an impact and taking meaningful snaps, but he's actually, he was playing well as two for a Superbowl contending team. He's living the dream. And in a blink of an eye,

it turns into a nightmare. And us as journalists, our dream is to be, is to be somewhere on ESPN, Fox Sports, one of the news stations, something like that. That's not really a risk for our lives. Our dream isn't a risk. What they are doing, these NFL players, they're living their dreams and they're doing something that they love. But I think we've taken for granted just how risky it is.

We hear the cliches all the time. What Ryan, what Ryan Clark said last night, we hear I'd go to war. I would give my life for this sport, but we've kind of taken that. It's gotten so cliche that we don't even think about the meaning of it and we might have just seen that last night that this kid's life is actually on the line for something that he loves but is it like a lot of players are going to be looking at this and saying is this worth is this worth my life and you could see see a lot more players quitting after this and leaving the game and it's a situation that i mean we're seeing the ugly side of the ugliest side of football that we've really never seen before, at least not us.

So that's something that I looked at and said, wow. I mean, just stop, like, I'll swear on the show, shit got real. And that's something that, like, anytime I see a hit or anything that seems routine, I'm going to be thinking about this. I'm not going to take any of these tackles or anything for granted. And that's something that I kind of looked at when I saw this. But I wanted to move on to change gears here and talk about the league's handling, um, of the situation talk. So many people kind of suggested that this game should have been called earlier that as soon as they were giving CPR to this guy immediately, you know, call the game, indefinite suspension, something along those lines.

Officials allegedly gave the teams five minutes to warm up soon after this happened. And we have seen, the league has seen scary things happen before. In fact, even recently with Ryan Shazier to a tongue of Iloa earlier on in the season. If you want to go way back, there's Daryl Stingley who got paralyzed as well. But something of this magnitude has only happened once. In 1971 with Lions wide receiver Chuck Hughes, he died on the field after being tackled. Coincidentally, it was also against Cincinnati. So, like, the way I've seen it, like, yes, maybe they could have called it earlier, but could you blame the way it was,

it was the way that this was handled since they've, we've never seen any of this. No one has been trained to look at a situation like this and be able to handle it the way that they did. And honestly, I had no complaints with what they did with how they did it. They, they gave, they let everyone, And honestly, I had no complaints with how they did it. They let both teams go back to the locker rooms and sort of collect themselves, take some time to just realize what just happened and come to terms with what just occurred.

And eventually, they called the game and we don't even know when the game's going to it's it's an afterthought when they will even schedule reschedule the game because this kid's life is still on the line right now as we speak but talk what are your thoughts about how the league handled this situation i think they did the best they could with what they were given. The players didn't go back out there. They did cancel the game, and they did send the opposing team back home. And they did the best they could with what they had as far as information. They got both teams' medical training staff on the field to resuscitate him it

took 10 trainers to actually get him breathing on the field again and it took all of them to get him to the I want to say ambulance and then ship him to the hospital and that hopefully he gets better and progresses well while he's there I think could they have tried to dump things a little better? Yeah, but this is the first time for the NFL to go through something like this. I know everybody wants them to be perfect and thought that they could have handled this better. But again, I don't know how the NFL could have handled this much better. They did try. They did the best that they could with what they had.

I don't see how the NFL could have done much better than what they've done in this situation. Yeah, listen. The vast majority, I gave only one case in all of NFL history, in the near century that football, not just the NFL, just football in general, has been around. One case where someone has died on the field. So the way the officials have been trained and the way it's always been going, 999 times out of 1,000, is that the player wakes up or God forbid, there's some serious, serious thing. And thank God it's been this way, by the way, because like I, the way football is the, the physicality and the nature of the sport, I feel like this could have happened a lot more and thank God it's, it hasn't happened uh very often but like the most of the time the

player either wakes up he's on the stretcher and he sticks it up a you know sticks up um puts up the thumbs up you know usually you don't like usually everything winds up being okay within 15 to 20 minutes and we're playing football again. So that's kind of the way the officials have gone about it. So I don't doubt that somebody said, you guys have five minutes to warm up. You guys do whatever you need to do. Take your time. Somebody probably said that,

but I don't blame them for that because they were trained for the situation to be how it was with Ryan Shazier or Tuat Tungavailoa or Daryl Stingley. Granted, those were still very terrifying things to happen. And, you know, thoughts and prayers still out to Ryan Shazier and Tua Tungavailoa. I hope Tua winds up being okay with the concussions that he's suffered. But the whistle still blows, and they still play football soon afterwards.

But they've never seen something like this, where a player is actually still at risk, right now as we speak, of passing away. At way too young an age. He's not even through his second year in the league. And this is just too early for someone to go out. I mean, it always is. But imagine being around our age and being at risk, um, to actually pass away.

Like that's, it's too early for this kid. Um, so I don't, I don't blame the league for how they handled it because this is how it's, how it's played out is that usually the player has been okay. Like the vast, vast, vast majority of the time. So I just don't blame him.

So that's kind of my take on these things. Because this hasn't happened before. And I really hope that it doesn't. And a side note to it is that, especially with the Tua Tunga-Vailoa situation earlier in the season, when he got smacked, this was also in Cincinnati, coincidentally, and then his fingers were doing that strange thing that was really scary. And I think that on top of this,

they might be, we might be looking at some more postponements when we see serious injuries like this, like maybe down the road, a thing like what happened in new England with the lions, the lions, young defensive back, maybe that game doesn't get played. Maybe it gets,

it gets, that also gets postponed to a later date so maybe they take more precautions and they look more into the their teammates mental health so that's something to look at going down the road is where the the league turn turns into i don't want to say an overcorrection because this is still a serious incident, but they could wind up making adjustments to look at this down the road. But I wanted to change gears again. This is going to be a quick episode, no commercial breaks. We're not going to play that intro for you guys um so i wanted to look into how this game was covered on monday night football by espn so i kind of so i don't know how how you felt about it tuck but what i noticed is

in the direct aftermath joe buck and t Aikman and also the staff in the studio kept on throwing it to commercial breaks. And when they weren't on commercial, they were always saying the same thing, is that football is irrelevant right now, which is true. It was irrelevant next to this kid's life. And that all we should be thinking about is Hamlin's health, which is also true. They were saying all true and relevant things, but that's kind of all they were saying repeating over and over again, which is what everybody agrees with. The whole audience is, they're all

thinking the same thing. But part of being a journalist, and this is what, this is part of what makes your job a tough job as a journalist, is to be able to cover the subject that's going on, even if it is a sensitive topic. And I get it. These guys, they don't want to say the wrong thing. They don't want to say something that comes off as insensitive, but you still have to be able to give us something. This is national television where this happened on. So you have a large audience. People are wanting to know what's going on. People want some context. People want to get some guests who might be able to provide some content to give us what's going on. And they didn't give us any of that. And you need to be able to inform your audience who is watching this and give them context to what is happening.

Because this is a serious topic. People want to know, um, people want to know what's happening. Um, so the, the crew, the crew was Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, uh, sideline was Lisa, uh, Lisa Salters, uh, among people and the, and the studio were Adam Schefter, Booger McFarland. But Tuck, what did you think about how they covered the game? I think as it was going on, I think they did the best what they could in this unfortunate situation. You couldn't really ask them much from them considering how severe the situation was. I mean, they were trying like they came to watch a football game not to see the tragedy that unfolded on the field so they were professional they did the best that they could in the moment that and what the information that they had they tried to

give updates immediately as possible they tried to prolong commercial breaks so the NFL world didn't have to see what was going on. But unfortunately, the situation just like you couldn't avoid it and you just kind of had to talk about it and you kind of had to like brace for it. So in the immediate aftermath of it, there was nothing like, I think they handled it as well as they could have. As it was unfolding, what happened the next day afterwards, I think they could have handled better.

But as far as that night on Monday night, I think they did the best with what they could with all the crew members that were there and the professionalism that was given to it. But I don't see how ESPN could have done much better than they tried listen i understand the situation that they're in right like this is a this is a tough topic to cover there's you there's not there's a thin line for you to to

walk along um without losing your balance and saying something that could come off as either insensitive or something that's irrelevant, like talking about scheduling. What are they going to do? How are they going to reschedule this game? Of course they don't want to cover that. But there's a lot of details that happened that night that they could have been giving us that were pretty important. Like the fact that Bengals players were going over to the Bills locker room to console with the Bills roster. That's something that's important.

That's something I would have liked to hear about. Or maybe this kid's background, where he's from. Give a little synopsis of, of his life. What's happened, you know, his career, um, his college career in at, at, uh, Pittsburgh, you know, where, uh, what was his major? I'd love, I'd love to learn about this, about this kid's life, especially, you know, you know, like, and how about the fact that he has his own fundraiser? Like all this stuff we had to learn from Twitter and the other like ESPN, who should be telling us this stuff. They're just saying the same thing over and over and over again.

And look, I get it. This is a, this is a very tough, this is a very tough, uh, touchy, sensitive topic. And you don't want to say the wrong thing, but somebody has to say something, especially the journalists who are supposed to be informing the public on what's going on, because this is, this is a serious topic. We want to know, we want to know what's happening. Um, so that we can stay informed. So that's kind of the, that's the issue that I had is, you know, it's a tough situation, but it's, this is a tough, this is the tough part of our job. And unfortunately we do have to, we do have to touch on that, especially since you have on ESPN, you have so many former NFL athletes who could be talking about the

locker room culture and what go, what, you know, what, um, they could be going through, um, you know, as a brotherhood, because that, like, I mean, the, you saw on the side, on the sidelines when they were giving, they were sending it to shots of you know uh players crying like we could you we could have gotten some insight on what they could be feeling right now and that's something that that's something that we we need to be you know getting as a public that's the only that's the issue that I had. But like I said, I understand the situation. It's a tough situation all the, all around. Um, but I wanted to, uh, I wanted to switch to another situation, another, um, another angle for this, which is does like how the league handles this going forward

so obviously they don't want to push players to play in their traumatized state and every schedule solution opens up its own can of worms and it's hard. And it's also hard to think about this part at all when this kid's life is still in danger. So I don't even think they're thinking about it right now, but somebody right now is trying to figure out how they're going to do this down the stretch. Now, just to be clear, all of this in this last part is irrelevant next to everything else that we just covered.

But it's still something that someone is going to have to figure out sooner or later. What do you think the league will do moving forward to sort all this out? I think they'll try the best that they can with the situation unfolding. I don't think there's going to be too many changes outside of maybe player safety. But as far as going forward, I don't know what people want the league to do. There really isn't much for them to do outside of what they're trying to do right now. I don't know.

I'm not really an expert on this. I don't know where the league should move going forward. I know we're always trying to evolve to do the best for the players, but at the same point in time, as unfortunate as it is, but I just don't know where to go from here if I'm the league. It's just the way it is right now, and as unfortunate as it is, I don't think anything is going to stop. I think that's just how it is.

If I'm the league, I don't know how to go forward. Yeah, and that's kind of like you're not – when it comes to scheduling, and I've noticed this, you haven't seen any sort of pushback from anybody outside of the league about what they should do because, like, do we know what to do? Like, we don't even feel like we should be we we should be touching on this until this kid until we find out that this kid's okay if he is and like any scheduling solution it opens up some sort of can of worms on what they should do.

For example, if they call this a tie, well, Cincinnati was ahead. Why did they have to be in a tie with the team that they were ahead of? But if they call this a win for Cincinnati, you didn't even get through a quarter of football. Also, if they were to schedule it for this week which it's already that's already not going to happen it's been announced then that that means both the bills and the bengals are playing on short rest and that only that's only an issue for me because that opens up uh that puts both teams in this situation at high risk for injury. And for players who make a living off of their bodies, if they were to get injured and it's something serious, then that's an issue.

And you see this opens a whole can of worms. Now, the solution that I've seen that has held the most water is that they reschedule this game and they put it after Week 18. They push the whole postseason back one week, and they have a Week 19 just for the Bengals and Bills. But that still has its issues as well. Because if they were to do that, then that gives all the other teams who are in the postseason an extra week of rest. And that's a week of rest that the Bills and Bengals aren't getting for no fault of their own. And then that also opens up problems with injuries. And furthermore, if the Bills win, they get two weeks off.

They wouldn't get two weeks off. They would still get, like, you see how this causes, like something goes wrong with any sort of scheduling solution that you could come up with. So you can't blame the NFL for not knowing what to do because we don't either. And honestly, it's the last thing that's on our minds right now, because we we want we are focusing on sending out our thoughts and prayers uh to this young kid demar hamlin who is still in critical condition in the hospital and i don't know tuck do you have anything more to add on on this issue no i'm good i'm good all Well, I think this is going to be it for us tonight. As I mentioned, all of our content has been moved.

At least anything that doesn't have anything to do with this for the foreseeable future until we get more updates on DeMar Hamlin's health. Thoughts and prayers go out to this kid. And honestly, at this point, football is irrelevant to this. I mean, I'm not even thinking about playoffs or anything until this kid's okay. But we won't do our whole outro. But thank you for tuning in during this time to our audience.

Um, we do have episodes out on Tuesdays and Fridays at 7 30 PM Eastern standard time. Uh, you can find us on all our regular platforms. We're on YouTube as well. Um, but in the meantime, thanks for listening to us. We'll see you whenever we're back. That might be Friday. We'll see. But we'll see you guys later. Over and out.