It’s not clear how much he’ll play Sunday, but Damar Hamlin will log snaps he’ll never forget. With starting Buffalo Bills safety Jordan Poyer expected to miss this weekend’s game against the Miami Dolphins, Hamlin is expected to dress and play against the NFL’s highest-scoring offense.
Hamlin, a Pittsburgh native who attended Pitt, suffered commotio cordis, a disruption of heart rhythm, in a Week 17 game last season against the Cincinnati Bengals. He will play in his first regular season game since that near-death experience. Hamlin, hit in the chest by Bengals’ WR Tee Higgins on a legal football play, flatlined on the field as Bills’ trainers and medical staff resuscitated him on the field.
The remainder of the Bengals-Bills game was cancelled, the game wiped from the record books. Since then, Hamlin has made a remarkable recovery. After meeting with a slew of doctors he was given clearance to return to the NFL. He spent the offseason practicing with the team and participated in the Bills’ preseason games. He made the team’s 53-man roster, something that wasn’t a given, but had been inactive the first three weeks.
While it was as scary a moment as you’ll ever see on an NFL field, there has been good that’s come from it. Over $9 million was raised for Hamlin’s “Chasing M’s” toy drive while there’s been a broader awareness and effort for individuals to learn CPR with money raised to buy defibrillators for places that need it. After his injury, the entire football world rallied around him but none than the Buffalo and Pittsburgh communities, the places that know him the most.
Days after the incident, Mike Tomlin had this to say about Hamlin.
“It’s a really personal thing for me,” he said via the team’s YouTube channel. “Being a Pittsburgher. And that young man being a Pittsburgher. I’ve known that young man since he’s probably been twelve. Just got a lot of love and respect for him as a human being. His commitment to his pursuit of his goals and dreams of doing what he’s doing right now which is playing in the NFL. To watch him make personal decisions and make that a realization. It’s just an honor to get to know young people like that.
“Had an opportunity to express that to him whenever I see him. We played Buffalo each of the last two seasons and he and I get to have a moment. It’s cool to not only appreciate these guys in terms of where they are now but to know them since they were younger people. To watch their maturation and development. To watch them earn what they’ve been chasing. It’s just really a cool thing. He’s an example of that. Got a lot of love for that young man. We lift he and that organization up in prayer.”
Starting QB Kenny Pickett was also impacted by it. Teammates at Pitt, Pickett said Hamlin was “like family.”
Hamlin grew up in Western Pennsylvania and played high school football at Central Catholic. He spent his college years at Pitt before being selected by the Bills in the sixth round of the 2021 NFL Draft. To date, he’s appeared in 29 games, making 13 starts, and recording 93 total tackles.
Buffalo and Miami kick off this Sunday at 1 PM/EST.
