PITTSFORD, N.Y. — The first padded practice is always the most anticipated part of an NFL training camp.
That’s when the action on the field begins to resemble, at least in part, actual football rather than the zero-contact version that dominates this phase of preparation for the season.
For the Buffalo Bills, the inaugural workout in pads Monday at St. John Fisher University took on special significance because it also was the first time that safety Damar Hamlin would be in a position to make contact since Jan. 2, when doing so in a game against the Cincinnati Bengals caused him to suffer cardiac arrest.
“A super big hurdle, as you can imagine,” Hamlin told reporters. “I pretty much lost my life playing this sport.”
It was impossible for him or anyone else participating or watching Monday to take the moment for granted. Hamlin wasn’t like any of his teammates on the field. He was the player who forever will be remembered for one of the more terrifying moments in NFL history.
There was Hamlin, undergoing CPR following his sudden collapse after making a tackle with 5:58 left in the first quarter. One moment he was standing, the next he was keeling over backward at midfield. And the scenes that followed – of athletic trainers and medical staff rushing to revive him as players, coaches, everyone else at Cincinnati’s Paycor Stadium, and a national television audience looking on in horror – remain fresh to this day. An incident so traumatic that it caused a game to go from being paused, to postponed, to scrapped altogether.
“It’s another milestone,” Hamlin said. “We’ve been getting over hurdles, just from everything as far as medical, getting out of the hospital to getting off the tubes … all the way to running again, not having oxygen, all the way to practicing again in OTAs, putting a helmet on and putting my cleats on, putting my gloves on, putting my mouthpiece in, putting shoulder pads on. So, it’s just another hurdle.
“It’s just another milestone, as far as the journey. It’s gonna be a long, long, long, long, long journey.”
By all indications, Hamlin got through the practice fine, with no obvious limitations or signs that he was going about his business any differently than his teammates. There was no denying that he attracted extra attention from the Bills’ athletic training staff, as well as his coaches.
‘My pace, my tempo’
For the record, Hamlin wasn’t involved in any significant contact, though he said he didn’t think about “the first moment of contact because what happened to me, it was such a random (thing) and it was any moment.”
He also had nary a pass thrown his way, which, as with any defensive back, he took as a sign of respect.
“(The coaches) always tell me it’s at my pace, at my tempo,” Hamlin said. “I honestly would love to do this whole process under a rock, get myself together, and then pop back out when I feel like my best, you know what I mean? But I think there’s strength in going through a process in front of everybody’s eyes. It shows vulnerability, it shows strength, shows perseverance and that’s the things I would love to stand for.”
But Hamlin also knew he couldn’t afford to approach the practice with even the slightest trepidation or hesitance.
“In football, you can’t hit that field with (any) hesitation,” he said. “You’re putting yourself in more danger by doing that.”
‘Processing a thousand emotions’
Still, that didn’t mean Hamlin was devoid of the sort of feelings one would expect him to be having. He has been living in a different world since the moment he woke up in that hospital bed at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center eight months ago.
Understandably, Hamlin feels a bit less invincible than the typical player in an extremely violent sport. Collisions are inevitable. In his case, so, too, will be more than the normal assessment of how his body handles them.
“I’m processing a thousand emotions,” he said. “I’m not afraid to say that it crosses my mind and being a little scared here and there. But my strength is rooted in my faith and my faith is stronger than any fear. That’s the message I want to spread to the world.
“As long as your faith is stronger than your fear, you can get through anything.”
Not talking big goals
Hamlin isn’t thinking beyond here and now. He’s focused on making it through another practice rather than whether he can retain a spot on the 53-man roster.
That isn’t a given. The Bills have added experience at safety with the signing of veteran Taylor Rapp. They also have Dean Marlowe to back up Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer. Hamlin finds himself at or near the bottom of the depth chart, along with Zayne Anderson.
To move up, Hamlin will need to show that he not only has made a full comeback health-wise but also strides as a player. Don’t talk with him about “big” goals.
“My goal is just one day at a time,” Hamlin said. “Just coming to practice, focusing on one period, one second, one play, one step at a time, honestly. My big goals, I can’t even mention them right now because I’ll be in the wrong headspace even thinking about them. Thinking that far down the line, it makes me not lose focus, but it puts emotions inside of me that I don’t even need to be dealing with or processing right now.”
Being ‘a chosen one’
It's fair to say Hamlin’s football future isn’t necessarily as important as the impact his ordeal made and continues to make on the entire world.
He singularly has brought more awareness to the need for people to receive CPR training and for more AEDs to be available at schools and other public places. Through his foundation, he has conducted CPR training events in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Cincinnati. He also has donated AEDs to youth sports leagues in those communities.
“I feel like it’s a personal mission to travel the world and get everybody CPR certified,” Hamlin said. “That will be my mission forever because it’s so important and it’s so effective and affected me directly. I always wanted to stand for something bigger than myself. That was my goal in my whole life. I had goals within this game, but life goals, that was the biggest thing I wanted to stand for, something bigger than myself. And I have the opportunity to do that now and I’m gonna fulfill that.
“… Not too many people get this level of overcoming something and being able to stand for so many good things. So, to be able to be a chosen one, and to be able to be the one to overcome something so big, it’s a blessed space and it’s a bunch of opportunity in there as well, if you choose to look at it that way.”