In the heart and the head, no tackle is ever routine

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Damar Hamlin doesn’t want to be the spokesperson for football mortality.

He wants people to recognize him not as a medical marvel but a quality football player. That process continues to unfold with every game Hamlin plays. Four nights after starting the Buffalo Bills’ season opener, he led them with eight solo and 10 total tackles.

On one of those plays, however, his new normal collided with a scary reminder of football’s brutal nature.

“I was just trying to make a routine tackle,” Hamlin said, “trying to get them off the field on fourth down.”

Because of Hamlin, everyone who watches football should know routine tackles don’t exist. Catastrophe lurks on every play.

All the points had already been scored in the third quarter of the Bills’ 31-10 victory over the Miami Dolphins, and on this particular play, all the yards Tua Tagovailoa needed for the first down had been gained. But the quarterback with a troubling concussion history didn’t slide.

On fourth-and-4 from Buffalo’s 13-yard line, Tagovailoa intended to pass before a lane opened straight ahead. He scrambled up the middle for 7 yards, but rather than go down safely, Tagovailoa closed his eyes, lowered his helmet crown and plowed into Hamlin head-first.

Upon contact with Hamlin’s right chest and arm, Tagovailoa’s neck and head quaked. Tagovailoa went limp and slumped over onto his rump, causing the back of his head to slam on the Hard Rock Stadium grass. A telltale sign of brain trauma, Tagovailoa’s arms went into a fencing posture, his right arm stiffly and involuntarily raised, his fingers contorted. Sadly, we’ve seen Tagovailoa in a similar pose. He has been diagnosed with at least four concussions and considered retirement because of head injuries suffered in 2022.

Hamlin didn’t immediately know the extent of Tagovailoa’s plight. Hamlin clapped his red-gloved hands in disgust and popped out his mouthpiece, frustrated the Dolphins moved the chains. Tagovailoa stayed down, but Hamlin thought maybe it was a cramp on an oppressively muggy South Florida night.

And then the moment kicked in, perhaps only briefly.

Hamlin acknowledged he might never shake the gravitas of big injuries, but he’s trying. It’s been 20 months since his cardiac arrest when making an otherwise routine tackle against the Cincinnati Bengals. An extremely rare occurrence triggered commotio cordis, a condition where a blunt force to the chest within a 20- to 40-millisecond window in the heart rhythm makes it stop. Hamlin was brought back to life with CPR and a defibrillator and spent two days in a medically induced coma. Hamlin would like to say he didn’t give Tagovailoa’s posture deeper thought than any other player might, but that wouldn’t be entirely honest.

“It’s trauma. It will always be there,” Hamlin said at his stall in the visitors locker room. “I’m able to not be affected by it because of the work that I’ve done. I went through trauma therapy. I have a psychologist I talk to. It’s allowed me to push my mind forward, push my process forward.

“I did the hard stuff last year as far as putting the pads on, tackling, getting game-ready to know that I’m now perfectly fine and perfectly able to go back and play.”

Hamlin last season was a healthy scratch for all but five games, starting none. He recorded two tackles on only 17 defensive snaps, playtime he nearly quadrupled in last week’s victory over the Arizona Cardinals.

Thursday night, he registered his first tackle for a loss since the game before his cardiac arrest. Two plays after tackling Tagovailoa, Hamlin showed no hesitation in stuffing Dolphins tailback De’Von Achane on second-and-goal from the 7-yard line. The play helped the Bills deny the Dolphins more points.

“It’s football,” Hamlin said. “I did the hard s— last year to free my mind, to be able to know that the field is one of the safest places to be for my situation that happened. We’ve got so many professionals that practice these situations that happen, and that resulted in me being able to come back.

“So my mind is free. My mind is clear. I’m just out there trying to play football.”

Tagovailoa’s situation has been repetitive and, at times, frightening to witness. We know how football can damage the human brain.

Many in the football world went on social media to tell Tagovailoa to retire, that long-term brain issues aren’t worth even the gargantuan four-year, $212.4 million contract he signed at training camp.

Strangers begged Hamlin not to play anymore, too.

“You’ve got to tune all that out,” Hamlin said. “At the end of the day, there’s nobody lining up on the field with you except the people that’s on your side. Ain’t nobody in the room with you when the cameras are off besides your family. Those are the opinions that matter.”