Cleveland Browns players battle emotions after Damar Hamlin’s collapse
BEREA — David Njoku’s pause spoke as loudly as anything the Browns tight end said Wednesday.
Njoku was asked if he felt, in light of the critical condition in which Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin remains after collapsing on the field after a tackle in Monday night’s game in Cincinnati, if it was too soon to be getting back on the field preparing for a game. The Browns are scheduled to end their season at the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday afternoon.
A silence hung in the air for several seconds as Njoku seemed to compose himself while, at the same time, figuring out what words to say. Finally, he found the words that worked best for him.
“I mean, it’s tough,” Njoku said. “It is tough. I don’t know him personally, but as a player I feel what the feelings are and at a higher point of view, especially because it could very well, like I said, happen to anybody. So, I mean it’s just tough. It’s very tough, and all we can do is just keep praying for him and make sure that he’s OK.”
Hamlin remains in critical condition at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where he was taken after being resuscitated on the field by medical personnel after his heart stopped. He was down on the field for 30 minutes after collapsing after a collision with Bengals receiver Tee Higgins on a tackle.
The Bills put out an update Wednesday afternoon, saying Hamlin remained in the intensive care unit in Cincinnati. However, the team said he Hamlin had “signs of improvement noted (Tuesday) and overnight.”
The Bills and Bengals did not resume their game. The NFL said Wednesday that conversations on whether or not to play it at a later date would start later in the week.
The Browns players had Tuesday off, so they didn’t have to deal with the mental and emotional juxtaposition of having to prepare to play their own game in a few days with also their concerns about a fellow player battling through a life-threatening condition. That reality struck them on Wednesday, though, as they began preparations for the Steelers game.
“It’s definitely going to be tough to finish out this last game and just go on the field knowing that there’s somebody out there that is in a life-or-death situation,” cornerback Greg Newsome II said. “Definitely going to be very tough and hopefully that’s why we got our guys around us and we can all talk through it and things like that. But it’ll for sure be tough.”
The challenge isn’t unique to the Browns. It was what every team in the NFL has been dealing with since watching the traumatic event unfold Monday night.
Individuals from across the league have been among those who have contributed to Hamlin’s Chasing M’s Foundation Community Toy Drive GoFundMe since he sustained the injury. That fund, which originally set a goal of $2,500 when it was originally established, has raised more than $6.6 million as of late Wednesday afternoon.
“It just shows that I feel like people outside, people are starting to see that we aren’t just football players, we’re humans,” Newsome said. “And I feel like an event like that, what happened shows that we’re humans first. I’m glad they stopped the game and it just shows that we are humans and we try to go out there and put on a show, but at the end of the day our safety and our life matters.”
The NFL has given no indication that it intends to alter the Week 18 schedule at this time. The only game that could be impacted is the Bills’ game against the New England Patriots in Foxborough, Massachusetts, which the league has said could be postponed depending on the well-being of the Buffalo players and staff.
That means the Browns, like every team not the Bills, had to try to find some semblance of “business as usual” Wednesday. The problem with that was that it was in no way at all “business as usual” for the Browns.