January 3, 2023 • 41 mins
Jason Smith and Mike Harmon continue to talk about the situation involving Bills safety Damar Hamlin and provide updates on his status.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to The Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight
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The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon at Fox Sports
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(00:23):
listening to Fox Sports Radio. Fox Sports Radio. It is
the second hour of the show Tonight, The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon, Live from the tirect dot Com studios. Oh,
it's good to see you, buddy. It's good to see you.
I think we were gonna have a different night tonight,
were to talk about the Jets and all kinds of
(00:44):
little bit of grab bass fantasy stuff. How much you
eight how many trips to McDonald jam made over the
two week holiday? I went to McDonald's very much over
the holiday. Well, I mean you're starting to think about
since the World cup Pool was over, that we we
needed another betting vehicle here in the studio, But we
didn't go that way and went the other day. But yes, tonight, Uh,
(01:12):
there is one story, and that is a continued hope
and prayer for the health of Bill's safety tomorrow. Hamlin.
In case you're just tuning in, UH, here's what happened tonight,
and we can give you the most up to date
information that is available. Uh. Hamlin's safety for the Bills,
collapsed on the field after making a tackle on Tee
Higgins in the second quarter of the game tonight. I
(01:34):
didn't look like it was a very violent play. There
was a little bit of hum trauma to his chest region.
You know. It was a rough tackle and Hamlin got
up quickly like he was getting up after a tackle,
took a step back and then fell backwards. He had
CPR administered to him on the field for close to
(01:56):
ten minutes. You see the video of Bill's players that
are crying and watching and Bengals players as well. Uh.
The game was suspended. It was eventually postponed after an hour,
and we're gonna have more on that coming up in
a second. Uh. There's no more football tonight. UH the
news we got from the stadium and since then, UH,
(02:18):
he was breathing, but not on his own. He was
transported to a hospital. I believe the UH ambulance waited
for his mother to come down from out of the stands, uh,
to go on the hospital to go in the ambulance
with them. He was intubated, and according to his marketing director,
his vitals are back to normal and he has a
(02:39):
tube in his throat right now to assist with his breathing.
He has been put to sleep. Uh so so then,
I mean, I don't know if you can call that
a medically induced coma, but he has been put to sleep,
uh so they can work on him. Uh. These are
the latest updates that we have of Damar Hamlin up
until this moment. And uh, there's no whether the game
(03:00):
is going to be played again. If it's going to
be played, but they play tomorrow, will they not? Are
the Bill is gonna stay in Cincinnati? I assume they
will all stay in Cincinnati overnight. Um, unless what he's
got bow Benson, we're in there. What are the Bills doing? Yeah,
per per Joe Danimen of Fox nineteen, in Cincinnati, the
Bills are flying home tonight and they're not staying in Cincinnati,
but some uh some people from the organization will remain
(03:23):
and they're flying home. Yeah, that's from That's a little weird.
Fox nineteen in Cincinnati. Yet that's a little weird. I don't.
I don't, that's kind of strange. I would have I
think they would have stayed. It is a little weird
that they didn't stay. But I don't look that. It's
just trying trying to figure out the permutations, right, and
(03:44):
and all of it. You know, not always is gonna
make sense. Is it going to be in the fashion
style timing? Uh, that anybody necessarily wants or or thinks
they would do in similar circumstance. So in this moment,
I just pull back and just hope for Hamlet, his family, friends,
obviously all his teammates that you know, there there's some
(04:08):
level of of assurance, peace, camaraderie, whatever they need to
lean into in the moment. Yeah, and it does hit
a little surprising, which would indicate that there's no imminent
desire or scheduling to put this game on, if that's
(04:29):
the case. But yeah, certainly the curiosities as we try to,
you know, cross all the teas down, all the eyes
now while while we are continuing to pray and have
great thoughts for him and his family, Just a little
bit about Damar Hamlet, because he's someone that look, you
hear his name. Now everybody knows who he is, but
nobody really knew anything about him coming into this this game.
And like even even the most ardent of NFL fans,
(04:52):
you would say, Okay, what you know? Do you do?
You know the starting safeties for your opposing team, And
like I'm like I told you the beginning of the show.
I knew his name a little bit because he played
it Pitt and you know, at four games against Syracuse
and you know, one of the best cornerbacks in the country,
and you know, you know, so I remember him in
his career a little bit um. But this is someone
who in looking and looking at his life and what
(05:13):
what he has fought to get to this point. He
grew up in in an area called mckey's Rocks, Pennsylvania.
This is where he is running his fundraiser that I'll
tell you, we got even better news on this part
of it. Now. He has been running a Chasing MS
Foundation community toy drive, something near and dear to his heart.
He wants to get toys for kids, and he's committed
to using his platform to positively impact the community that
(05:35):
raised him. So again it's on go fund me at
Chasing EM's Foundation and uh he wanted to raise twenty
dollars for this and now it's up to let me
hit refresh. I'll give you the big abuse problem. It's
now up to over nine hundred thousand dollars. So just
in the last couple of hours, UH, donations have come
in a hundred dollar goal and it is now up
(05:58):
to nine hundred thousand dollars. So I really again, I
can't wait from to wake up and hear this news. Hey, dude,
your toy drive is blown up. Man, you're gonna have
You're gonna have a lot of money to spend, man,
and go get for all these kids. So it's great,
great news. Now what he has had just to tell
you a little bit about his life, he has said, Look,
I had a very difficult upbringing, right. I read a
(06:18):
couple of interviews he had did coming out of college
the Personality Profiles. He did an interview where he estimates
half the people he knew that he was friends with
growing up are dead, that they were killed because it was,
you know, where he's from. It was a very difficult,
uh part of Pennsylvania to grow up in. And it
wasn't it wasn't gang. It wasn't all gang or drugs.
(06:39):
It was sometimes a disagreement would end in someone pulling
out a gun. And he went through some of the
people that that he knew growing up. He says, yeah,
it might be no close friends that I knew. Um,
his mom knew that she wanted to have get him,
uh to have a life where he can succeed if
football was his was his way to go. She got
him into private school and he got a scholar scholarship
(07:01):
to Pitt and he went there as one of the hype.
I think he was the number one defensive player in
the state when he went to When he went to
Pitt out of out of high school, and he had
an injury that nobody could figure out. Like he went
there and every Okay, this guy is gonna be the
next great job, Like here's your here's your next revs. Right,
because you know Reevas Pitt and here comes you know,
it's shut down corner a bit. And he had a
(07:22):
hernia injury that got misdiagnosed and it was it was
mystery that he couldn't do the normal things he could
do on the field, and no one knew what it was.
And once they found out that according to the to
the article I read that, um, it was just mistreated
a little bit. And once they figured out sports hernia
versus regular hernia, he was on the field and he
(07:43):
was able to become the player he was. He's taken
by the Bills in the sixth round of the draft,
and you look, when you're you're taking in the sixth round,
you're hoping I can stick around for a little while, right,
I can play a couple of years. I can play
on special teams, maybe work my way up, and that's
what I want to do. And when mikea. Hyde got
hurt earlier this year, looks one of the best safeties
in the NFL. You've heard about the the hide, pour
(08:05):
your tandem. How good it's been for Buffalo for the
last few years. Um he jumped into a starting role
and Leslie Frasier, defensive coordinator uh even said he has
been growing uh both physically as as a player and
as a leader. He is the number two player on
the Bills and tackles this year with one he started
thirteen games. And this is Bill's defense. That's one of
(08:27):
the top five units in the game. And you know
you normally use a player like Micah Hyde. You go, okay,
you know, now we we're gonna have a tough time
replacing him. And he's been able to come in and start,
and the Bill's defense hasn't missed a beat. And it
really is something to see this, you know, especially when
you get thrown into a situation like that where hey,
I'm a backup. How many snaps am I getting in
(08:48):
a game? And you know I'm playing on special teams
and now, hey, guess what, dude, get your your sixty snaps.
Get ready, you're starting next week. And he gets thrown
right in the fire with no reps. And I just
keep thinking back to any given Sunday when Jamie Fox
was eating the chips on the sideline. He was going
and he throws up. He's like, what do you need up?
Going in? Everybody's heard going he throws up before he
goes in. Uh, you know, it's just like, hey, you
(09:09):
know what, you're the next man up, You're going in.
And he goes in. And he's been having a really
really good season ninety one tackles, as you said, sixty
three solo up, appearing in fifteen games thus far. So
we we look at a little bit of a playing
time as a rookie. But to your point, right, we
we've been talking a lot this NFL season about the
next man up mentality. Were commemorating David Blow playing the
(09:33):
other day at quarterback. So you never know when that
opportunity is gonna come. And and you're surrounded obviously on
a great squad, which means you're not just a guy, right,
because there's ambitions there. Right, this is not a Alright,
we're gonna test players out and see how things go. No,
there's a team with championship aspirations. So the trust was
(09:54):
there putting him in, and he's responded responded, well, We've
talked about him a bit throughout the season as we've
spotlighted the Bill's defense. Uh, because you need to write
there's a lot about Josh Allen and and Stefon Diggs
and company, questions about the run game, which is actually
seventh in the league coming in tonight. But but Hamlet
(10:16):
a guy who helped fortify that back end because they've
been beset by injuries, right, you lose Millard for the
year and and other things that you've had to overcome.
And he's been a big part of what they did.
So you know, as you you pull into a spot
like that and and have that level of impact, you're
also more included in that inner circle of the guys, right,
(10:37):
not that everybody's not in, but you're making big plays
and contributing on that kind of level. So when you
saw the raw emotion of the teammates, that's it's one
of their guys, and that's that's the next level. You know,
kind of inner workings that we we spotlight as best
we can write, the emotion and the camaraderie that goes
(10:58):
through and in this moment, you know, a bit of
a celebration of the battle to to become the player
he had in that defense. UH the Jason Smith throw
with Mike Carmon live from the tirect dot com studios.
Twitter at how about a frescup, Mike hat swollen dome again.
I We'll have more on DeMar Hamlin throughout the night. Again.
That's the latest news from UH. Jordan Rooney is is
(11:21):
the man's name, who's his marketing director. His vitals are
back to normal. They've put him to sleep to put
a breathing tube down his throat. They are currently running
tests we will provide updates as we have them. So
the whole world is is with Damar Hamlin right now.
Whether you knew him before, whether you knew a little
bit about him, whether you're the the you know, a
big football fan, you know a lot about his career,
(11:43):
just a little bit about what he's gone through to
make it to the NFL, UH and and getting out.
So there's going to be uh, we're getting this right now.
Hang on is coming in right now. Uh PR folks
from the hospital are going to speak to the media
to update to condu shin of Damar Hamlin. No specific
time is given yet. This is from C. Trent Rosencrantz's
(12:05):
Twitter account. Uh so we're going to get an update
on Hamlin at some point soon. We're starting to see
some of the uh coverage coming from outside the hospital
with what's going on for tomorrow Hamlin. It was pretty Uh,
it was a pretty quick jump from hey, here's the
field and the game is canceled. We're not gonna play
football tonight the rest of the night to now let's
(12:27):
go on and see what is happening with tomorrow Hamlin.
So again, that's the latest we have right now on
Hamlin on his situation. Hopefully we will get an update
soon and we'll be able to bring it to you
when there is. I would assume there will be one
before midnight, just by judging how news, just by judging
how the news cycle goes, and you and I, you know,
(12:47):
doing news like this for the last for the last
few years, I would assume there will be one before midnight.
Uh not not to make the local news, but usually
by midnight, that's when you know you're gonna get something.
And they wouldn't announce something was coming. You wouldn't hear
something was coming unless it was coming relatively soon. Sure
they could have said, hey, we have an update coming
at three am East Coast time or midnight when you know, Okay,
(13:09):
we're doing a lot of things. So the fact that
we're hearing there could be an update soon, maybe this
tells me. And again we're just I'm just trying to
play a you know, wait and see, you know, to
figure things out a little bit. Um. Maybe they just
have to has to rest and they have to wait
and see how things go. Maybe they have their waiting
for test results and it's not gonna they're not gonna
get anything else. For a while so we can give
(13:30):
you an update, because we normally don't get updates when
it's an evolving situation. Normally you get an update. Went, Okay,
here's where we're at, at least for the next couple
of hours, and this is where we there. We expect
we could have another update, you know, four hours from now,
early in the morning, late in the morning, whatever it is.
But if they if there is word of an update coming,
I would assume it's in the next half hour forty
(13:52):
five minutes and that there may not be a big
medical update after this. If this is what we've gotten
from his UH, from his PR, from his marketing director,
maybe that's what we're gonna get from the hospital. But
in trying to live every minute here and trying to
figure out what news is is is good and what
news isn't, I have to say at least the needle
(14:13):
is moving a little bit towards the positive. Me I
don't know, but just judging by what we're hearing, what
we're being told, I gotta I gotta think and hope
at least it's it's a little bit on the positive side. Look, Hey,
he's he's vitals are back to normal. That's good. Uh,
you know, he's breathing, they have a tube in. You know,
it doesn't it doesn't seem like he's in immediate danger.
I mean, just trying to to see, trying to part
(14:34):
through those words that that is person, the pr agent,
uh whatever the exact title is, that that put out
on his behalf. So you know, we try to find
the positivity and in the interim keeps sending all the
good thoughts that we can and you know, try to
promote you know, his charitable aspect of it, and that
(14:57):
it brought a community together, right, people putting their emotions
and recognizing the humanity of the situation. And we'll take
that as the positive. And then we'll wait for the
next word from the medical professionals as to where we're
at in this process. And I'm sure we'll hear something
more from from Park Avenue or from the teams as
(15:20):
we get a little further removed from the post poem
into this game. Fox Sports Radio The Jason Smith Show
with Mike Carmon. So hopefully you learned a little bit
about Tamar Hamlin there in the last few minutes and
in his life, you know, growing up mckey's Rocks, getting
to University of Pittsburgh and getting to the National Football League.
We all have more on this coming up next, including
just just something that kind of I never thought about
(15:42):
the perspective of how certain events and and how something
like tonight affects so many people. But I get a
story to tell coming up in a couple of minutes
that I want to break down and talk about as
it relates to what happened with tomorrow Hamlet, So keep
it right here. That's coming up next. Jason Smith, Mike
Harmon Fox Sports Radio. Be sure to catch live editions
of The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at
(16:04):
ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio
and the I Heart Radio app Fox Sports Radio. The
Jason Smith Show with My best friend Mike Harmon. Dope
the Chasing MS Foundation Community toy drive to mar Hamlin's
charity of his goal. It is now to nine fifty
(16:26):
four thousand dollars money pouring in to help something near
and dear to his heart as we continue to wait
uh for an update on him. Tomar Hamlin, who collapsed
making a tackle during Monday Night Football's game tonight between
the Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals. The game was postponed.
(16:47):
The players on the field, UH watched him get worked on.
They performed CPR on him for a good ten minutes. Uh.
He was not breathing on his own. The pictures and
the visuals you have seen from this is stunning and watching,
you know, seeing this story continue to evolve. The thing
that that continues to hit me on this is that
(17:07):
you see the looks on all the players face, even
Joe Burrow who was just sitting on the ground. You're
watching because when you give somebody CPR, you you're danger.
You're breaking the ribs because you kind of have to
when you're giving CPR. You're watching this for ten minutes
and happened, and you see Josh Allen is almost in tears,
and so are other players and they're hugging, and it
was you know, the game just stopped right there, and
(17:29):
right there should have been the decision to all right,
the game's over. Okay. We have seen games before where
players have gotten injured, they've been immobilized, they're taking off
the field, we don't know a lot about what's going on,
and they continue to play games. Right, it happens that
way we have seen that. This is when you're seeing
a guy have CPR performed on him for ten minutes. Uh,
(17:50):
this is when you have to say, Okay, the game
is over. And it still took the NFL about an
hour to figure it out. And in the end the
right decision was made and they decide dupe to postpone thing.
And now whether the bills told them we're not playing,
they made the right decision. It's still studying that it
took that long. It's an easy decision to make. It's
one phone call from Roger Goodell. I mean I get
(18:12):
the whole Well, the nflpa's getting no. No, you know,
there's one phone call. We'll figure the rest of it out. Well,
it's is It's a human thing to do. And in
seeing this and thinking about this, it brought me back
and I've been thinking about this a lot. It's been
in my head the last couple of hours. I was
a freshman at Syracuse in that was my that was
my first year there. And on December twenty one, that
(18:35):
was the explosion of PanAm flight one oh three over
lockerby Scotland, UH terrorist attack that killed everybody on board,
including thirty five students who were coming back to Syracuse
from a semester abroad. They had all spent the semester
overseas and they were flying back. One of the one
of the kids flying back went to my high school.
(18:56):
I didn't know hi. There was a couple of years
ahead of me, so I was a freshman, think he
was a junior. I didn't really know him, but he
was on the plane and it was I remember the story.
It was all the news. It was a different time,
for sure. You're you're going back now thirty some odd
years and and you know, if you if you are
old enough to remember, you remember it. If not, it
(19:16):
was a big news story that comes out it's a
terrorist attack, and it was a plane was was blown up,
and it had the news came in, if I remember,
right around noon, and we were talking about it in
the hallways about what's going sides in the dorm at
that point, and a couple of people were friends with
a guy whose girlfriend potentially didn't know if she was
(19:38):
there or not. They were trying to figure out and
that was the kind of day it was. And you know,
part of the story was of these two fifty nine
you get the details thirty five of them went to
Syracuse and it's a it's a moment that I can
say maybe the campus still hasn't recovered from. It's still
something that that permeates the days following that. We're a
(20:00):
blur walking to class there there are news people there
wanting to talk to you. Like I didn't interview going
to class because I just happened to be walking to
class and one of the local people said, hey, or
do you go here? Can I talk to you for
a couple of minutes, Like a woman from Channel nine
did an interview with the Syracuse Post Standard. Just they
were talking to everybody about finding out what it was.
And I gotta go back to the story because the
news happened at about noon, newness, I would say, and
(20:23):
I don't I don't remember. Did I go to class
that day? I don't remember, but I remember we had
a basketball game schedule that night against Western Michigan, and
at the time, we were really good. I mean, look,
this is back when Syricuse basketball was in the late eighties.
It was hey, it was we were great. Right, We're
coming off the Final four, uh in in eighty seven
against Indiana. We were, you know, winning the Big East
every year. Sherman Douglas and Derek Coleman. We had a
(20:45):
game against Rectrom Michigan and we played the game, and
I remember they started the game by asking for a
moment of silence for the victims of the flight. And
we played the game. And I didn't think about it
then because you know, I'm seven teen years old, you know,
But but I didn't think about it too much. But
I remember at the time, going, we're gonna play this game.
(21:07):
We're gonna play the game. Everybody just died. But I
didn't think about it in a you know, a sports
talk radio and thinking about you know, like an adult.
I'm like, I can't playing. Everybody just died. And I
remember having this conversation with my roommate who was an
editor at the newspaper, and we were on completely I
remember he said to me, what do you what did
you we send Western Michigan home without a game? And
I said, yeah, like like, wait, am I wrong about this? Now? Yeah?
(21:29):
We set him home without a game. We don't play
a game. And you know, it was a different time
because at the time when this stuff came out, when
when this news came out, it wasn't the instant news
that we knew. We knew something had happened, the plane exploded.
How many people had died? Did we get confirmation? And
the chancellor, Melvin Egger's of of the school, decided to
(21:52):
play the game, if I remember this right, because he
thought so many people were already coming to the game
that it would have been too different cult to have
to just cancel it. And then everybody coming for the
game has to turn and go back. Right, Western Michigan
was coming and syracuses there and fans are coming to
the game. Remember Beeheim was said he was all for
canceling it, but it wasn't his decision. Uh. Now, in
(22:13):
the end of day I decided, hey, we're not gonna play. Yeah,
you could have done that, but still, and I know
in in in later years, uh, Melvin Eggers regretted that
decision playing the game, But it didn't really hit me
and you know, with with perspective at that point. But
as time goes on, I think, yeah, I know it
was a different time in the information flow, Well what
really happened this and that? But it seems like these
(22:34):
moral decisions should be pretty easy to say, oh plane
blew up and and third, okay, let's let's cancel the game.
But then you get caught up in so much of
the machinations of things that that's a decision that gets
made um tonight with the maschinations of the of the football,
of the of the business of football. We've seen players
(22:55):
get hurt like this before and we always pray that
they're okay. We see them leave the field and and
we hope they are right, and we go back to
the game and hear the same things. Boy tough to
go back to football after this, But we go back
to football, we play were an update after and hopefully
they're okay. And you know, Ryan Shazier, we're hoping he
was okay. And you know, we're playing in the game.
But morals just like it should be easy and and
(23:17):
and I don't understand how it's they're so difficult at
times where your gut reaction normally is the right one.
And if the gut reaction is, oh, yeah, we can't
play this game, right, we have to cancel the game.
I mean that that's really what it what it should be,
And especially after the point of when players have to
see players have seen other players getting worked on on
(23:38):
the field many times before, but after you see CPR
given in a in a life or death situation on
the field, Yeah, that's the game. That that's the game.
That's where someone has to stand up and say you
know what, yeah, no, that's it. Whatever heat comes in,
you want to fire me for making that decision, Okay,
I'll let But that's where it was. Okay, that's the
point of no return. That's where this game is done.
(23:59):
And we and you know, sit around waiting an hour
and then especially you know, having to say we're gonna
resume in five minutes, because that was what the first
report was was that after this happened, he leaves the field,
we're gonna right, we'll suspend the game. Now we're gonna
resume in five minutes. Well, well, whoa, whoa, whoa, we'll
wait wait resuming five that the field is cleared, stretch
go back to playing football was kind of the at
least what was intimated in that moment, right announcement over
(24:20):
the p A and everything else. The coaches and just
say all right, they went back and talked to each
other and went and now we'll get more information over time.
But some of the initial reports are it's the coaches
on behalf of their players, uh, that that really stood
up and said this isn't working, that they really needed
to talk and convince the Commissioner's office in Park Avenue,
(24:44):
and we'll get the devil will be in the details
of this, and you know, folks will will have their
their opinions, and certainly as we're here on radio, that's
that's the job. This is the story is now and
it's another failing by the League Office in terms of
acting with any side type of swift response to exigent
(25:06):
circumstances as related to player health, which we've had numerous
occasions this week. I mean, how many hours have been
spent bloviating over to a tongue of violoa, Should he play?
Should he not? What do we do? How do we
keep improving protocols, concussion protocols, self reporting of instances in
games and all of those things. We're really literally coming
(25:29):
out of a full week of that into this for
the League Office, great because they had to have a
whole investigation of how that was handled, and they they
announced their results on Friday. For those that haven't seen it,
the the act of the defibrillator coming out and being
used is the most terrifying thing you'll ever see. I
(25:52):
had a neighbor pass away. She she collapsed in in
our parking lot of our complex. I happened to be
going outside and I was there as the ambulance came
up and performed this act. The violence to it, the
like you're you're drained, like for days like she passed away,
(26:15):
and that was the last that I saw of this
sweet old woman in our complex. And it just thinking
that that's they're watching their guy that's playing the game
that they're playing. And to think they're gonna immediately able
to turn on all right, let's go second down in
five is assinine to me that that would even be
contemplated for a minute. Um, I'm choking up thinking about her,
(26:40):
especially when you don't have to you don't have this,
that's we didn't need to have this. But but that's
the other point. It's game. It's an entertainment vehicle. Obviously,
it's a multibillion dollar business. And you know, you're looking
at pragmatism. You're looking at you know, your yea beholding
you know, if you're Roger Goodell, to all all of
(27:02):
the owners, to the millions of fans, the people to
your point about the Syracuse game, the people that came
to the game, Like you're trying to take all those
into consideration, obviously, so it makes it a more complicated
thing for him. But from the outside looking in, it's like, no, no, no,
this one, this one isn't a hard one. This one
is you know, hit the plunger and then let's have
(27:24):
our time. Let's let the players, you know, be with
their their teammate and reconvene when it's when we have news,
when we have you know, something where where they're not
on their their emotions edge to be able to be
in the right frame of mind to play a game.
It's it's just difficult to imagine that process. And certainly,
(27:48):
you know, the decision decision making, the leadership of the coaches,
you know, being being talked about, and all of that
coming back in and the humanity of the game being
shown once again, write something that we we know the
league as the beheemth that it is will struggle with.
And I think we're we're looking at both McDermott and
(28:12):
Taylor in this moment and saying, you know, they were leaders,
right and they took their their teams back into the
locker room, and at least from the outside looking in,
that they forced the issue in looking out for their
players as people as people, which was which is the
key part in all of this process. Yeah, that that's
(28:34):
kind of what I'm waiting for to see, like, how
did how did this, how did this go about? How
did this go down? After after what happened, Because I
mean I went I am stunned that after the CPR happened,
Sean McDermott didn't just say we're leaving. You can if
we forfeit. We forfeit. I don't give a crap, but
we're leaving. We're going to the hospital. Means that might
(28:56):
have been it. When I met at a he and
Taylor and they had a very quick conversation and you
saw both coaches lead their teams to the locker room,
that that might have been it just saying no, we can't.
I I hope, I I really hope it was. I
really hope it was. Well, I shouldn't say that. I
hope the NFL came in and made the right decision
(29:17):
in the end, and they didn't have to. We're not
going to find out that there were certain demands that
were made, or they had to draw the line in
the sand. I want to hope that the right thing.
I always want to hope the right thing is done.
I want to hope that the NFL it was just, hey, hey,
we were never going to continue. There needed to be
some things that were said. We had to we had
to figure out. There's a lot of the red tape
we had to go through to get there. I'm hoping
(29:38):
that's what it turns out to, because I don't I
don't want it to be something bad, But I wonder,
I wonder if it was you know, how much of
it was the coaches drawn a line in the sand,
because you know, and to talk about the bills that
the Bengals didn't want to play, that this could have
been one of this could have been one of their guys,
you know. But the same thing. But but think about
t Higgins, right, they think about the tackle in and
(29:58):
of itself, right, the con tag there, what's going on
in his mind? Right? The process, So they're being there
for their teammate who's got to be struggling with this
right all the way down, Like it's it's on both
sides of this that you're feeling, you know, for for
your teammate involved in in this play that will now
(30:20):
be be part of the NFL's history and hopefully we
get a good result for Hamlet out of it. That's
where all our thoughts and and energies have to go to.
But yeah, from your point of the bangles the shot
of Joe Burrow like in the immediate aftermath, eyes wide
and just shaking his head like what is what is happening?
What is going on here? What is going on? And
(30:42):
it really and it really puts a lot of things
in perspective, and again that that should have been an
easy decision. Right now, let's find out what's trying to
get the wide world of sports with Steve to say
or s D. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the
Syracuse story. It's reminded me of a couple of other things.
Remember after nine eleven baseball games were canceled for nearly
a week after the Kennedy assassination. Three, most notably the
(31:06):
NFL played games that weekend. The a f L did not.
Apparently there were NBA games that weekend, there were NHL,
but Big ten football postponed games and the a f
L postponed as well. A f L NFL had not
merged yet at that time. And more to the point,
maybe a couple of summers ago, remember Denmark soccer star
(31:26):
Christian Ericson collapsing on the field during a Euro Championships game.
Not due to a contact injury, it was cardiac arrest
in this case, and the team doctor for Denmark said
uh later after the game that the player's heart stopped beating,
that he was quote gone, that they shocked him back
to life on the field at the stadium and stunning lee.
(31:50):
That game resumed that night. We mentioned earlier in the
show that our friend Jason lackinfora had retweeted and many
others have now the Toys for Chill Drin charity that
DeMar Hamlin has been involved with in his hometown in Pennsylvania.
We can update that this charity, which had a goal
of raising two thousand five dollars apparently for back to
(32:11):
school supplies as well, has now received over forty different donations.
It's over one million dollars for this community toy drive tonight.
It's astounding. This is the Chasing MS Foundation community toy drive.
It's on go fund me. It benefits the daycare center
(32:32):
in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania. Just amazing. Just to back up
what has gone on tonight's and this was just before
nine pm Eastern time. The serious injury to Buffalo Bill
safety DeMar Hamlin the Monday night football game and Cincinnati
was postponed in the first quarter. Hamlin is in critical
condition at a local hospital. His marketing rep said in
(32:54):
his last update over an hour ago, de Mar's vital
signs are back to normal. They are currently running tests.
The medical center now says it does not expect to
issue an update this evening. Hamlin of the Bills made
a tackle, stood up, and then collapsed motionless on the field.
On the play, the ball carrier ran right into Hamlin's chest,
leading with his shoulder. Hamlin was just holding on to
(33:16):
make the tackle. An ambulance was on the field within
five minutes. CPR was administered on the field. Hamlin's uniform
was cut off him. He was reportedly given oxygen as
he was eventually loaded onto a stretcher and into an ambulance.
Earlier today, Penn State won the Rose Bowl over Utah
thirty five twenty one to lane edge. USC in the
(33:37):
Cotton Bowl forty wins for l s U and Mississippi State,
as well. College hoops Rutgers one at number one, produced
sixty five sixty four NBA. The Nets one their twelve
straight game victories for the Lakers in Philly and Cleveland
and overtime beat Chicago. Donovan Mitchell of the Cavs seventy
one points and eleven assists. But there is no greater
(33:59):
or more Warton's story than what you guys have spent
the night talking about, and that is the health of
Bill safety Tomorrow Hamlin back to you. Thanks for Steve.
I mean, I I of all the video we've seen
of the Bills players who obviously they're closer with Hamlin
because they know him. He's their brother, and and they
go to battle with him every week in football. I
just can't get the Joe Burrow thing out of my
(34:21):
head just and they because look, Josh Allen's a star
quarterback and I get you can see him and he
just put out a big tweet please pray for our brother.
It's the Joe Burrow. I just can't get of him
just standing there like, what what is what is going on? What?
What is happening? This this should mean, this is this
shouldn't happen? What is what is this? What is this
all about? I just can't And they stayed on that
(34:42):
shot for a long time. Obviously, look he's a star player,
but they stayed on that shot of him forever, and
I just I just keep thinking about they can't get
that out of my head like like that. That's what
I think of when I think about this is him
just going this is football? What? What? What is what
is this? It's it's everything about the sport just summed
up in in in that one bit of you know,
ten fift second video. Yeah, the replays and and as
(35:04):
we've watched it, and even in the immediacy, Jason, it
would look like a tackle, right, a hard hit, pulled
the guy to the ground and got back up, and
then we saw what unfolded from there. So you know,
plays you've had and gone through thousands of times and
practices and games, and in this moment things went catastrophically wrong.
(35:29):
So as players, you know, you're trying to reconcile that
what you've been doing all this time, what you continue
to do as your profession, uh, your teammates and opponents,
there's that respect in between the white lines. That that
was just I don't know that you'll ever see it
more evident than what was on display. Seeing some other
reports of Stefon Diggs and and going to the hospital
(35:51):
and and being stopped by security and having a reporter
verify who he was. Okay, okay, good, come on, come on,
it's a team. So he got it, got in saying, hey,
we have to be there for our guys. So um
more as as the night unfolds, Uh, something good to
think about out in this situation. Some positive that we're
(36:13):
gonna get to coming up next. Keep just to think
about this when it when it comes to what's happening
is we continue to hope and pray for Damar Hamlin.
That's coming up next right here. Jason and Mike Fox
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Would mean a lot to have you join us on
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Jason Smith Show with Mike Carmen from the tire Act
(38:00):
dot Com Studios. We'll give you a full update. Uh
in in in in greater depth on Tamar Hamlin, who
right now is in critical condition at a Cincinnati area hospital.
He collapsed after making a tackle in the first half
of tonight's game against the Bengals. The game was then postponed.
Uh He was given CPR on the field. He was breathing,
(38:22):
but not on his own. But right now he is
has his vitals back to normal. We are expecting some
sort of press conference or an update coming up in
a few minutes, but just one thing at one positive,
one thing that hopefully is is going to help go
his way with this as as as as he fights
and and he keeps sending all your thoughts and Carmen
(38:44):
good and good prayers to Cincinnati. Is that you know
he he think about this. He has some kind of
episode on the field, whether it was part of the
traumatic result of the of the hit the tackle he
maybe maybe it was maybe, I mean it looked like
it was just some what of a hard tackle, but
you don't know what it was and what happened. Uh.
The fact that you know he has this episode and
(39:07):
he you know, falls back and hits the ground, and
the speed in which they get to the field and
they begin treating him. I just think about that for
a second because if if it's you or I in
a mall, right and we're walking and and and we collapse,
like what happens? You gotta call for help. Someone's gotta come.
What's happening? Okay, let's go get somebody. Now. Somebody comes
(39:30):
and maybe it's somebody who has some kind of medical training,
maybe it's somebody who doesn't. And then you're calling an ambulance.
It's gotta get to the mall and find a place
to park and then get in how long until you're
being worked on? Right? That that's the whole thing and
that that's that's that's the game for a lot of
times when you have an episode like that. This was
something that at least and and I think about this
is that he can and they were on the field
(39:52):
in seconds working on him, evaluating him and figuring out
what went wrong. Initially they saw them, they they put
his head, They mobilize that. They started working on him
right away. They were getting him CPR very quickly. They
were able to keep him. Look and he's alive right now.
And and and while you know, we'll we'll see how
things go as far as what the the treatment actually
(40:14):
was and what they did. Just the fact that they
were able to get to him so fast and start
working because of this is what an NFL game has.
You have these doctors that have been doctors for a
long time, a lot of medical people that are on
hand right away. They can cannot even start working on
you in seconds. That is one of the positives of
the NFL stadiums. And we've seen that relayed because we've
(40:36):
had medical personnel from different teams on the show through
the years, and that that is certainly one thing you see,
the mobilization very quickly uh to be able to react
and and you go do your normal checkups wherever you are.
If you're do for one, make sure you go get it,
get that done. But they always talk about time, right
and being such a factor in everything that that immediacy
(41:00):
of response. Yeah, and is it's heroic in ways right
that we'll hopefully get a good result out of this.
But the mobilization, that's the one thing from an NFL
personnel standpoint, As much as we may but bemo in
the league office on the sidelines, they got a right
Jason Smith Mike Harmon Live from the tirect dot Com studios.
(41:24):
More on the evolving and breaking story involving Tomorrow Hamlin.
That's coming up next right here on Fox
Thanks for listening to The Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight
ten pm to two am Eastern seven to eleven pm
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for
The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon at Fox Sports
Radio dot com, or stream us live every night on
the I Heart Radio app by searching fs R. You're
(00:23):
listening to Fox Sports Radio. Fox Sports Radio. It is
the second hour of the show Tonight, The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon, Live from the tirect dot Com studios. Oh,
it's good to see you, buddy. It's good to see you.
I think we were gonna have a different night tonight,
were to talk about the Jets and all kinds of
(00:44):
little bit of grab bass fantasy stuff. How much you
eight how many trips to McDonald jam made over the
two week holiday? I went to McDonald's very much over
the holiday. Well, I mean you're starting to think about
since the World cup Pool was over, that we we
needed another betting vehicle here in the studio, But we
didn't go that way and went the other day. But yes, tonight, Uh,
(01:12):
there is one story, and that is a continued hope
and prayer for the health of Bill's safety tomorrow. Hamlin.
In case you're just tuning in, UH, here's what happened tonight,
and we can give you the most up to date
information that is available. Uh. Hamlin's safety for the Bills,
collapsed on the field after making a tackle on Tee
Higgins in the second quarter of the game tonight. I
(01:34):
didn't look like it was a very violent play. There
was a little bit of hum trauma to his chest region.
You know. It was a rough tackle and Hamlin got
up quickly like he was getting up after a tackle,
took a step back and then fell backwards. He had
CPR administered to him on the field for close to
(01:56):
ten minutes. You see the video of Bill's players that
are crying and watching and Bengals players as well. Uh.
The game was suspended. It was eventually postponed after an hour,
and we're gonna have more on that coming up in
a second. Uh. There's no more football tonight. UH the
news we got from the stadium and since then, UH,
(02:18):
he was breathing, but not on his own. He was
transported to a hospital. I believe the UH ambulance waited
for his mother to come down from out of the stands, uh,
to go on the hospital to go in the ambulance
with them. He was intubated, and according to his marketing director,
his vitals are back to normal and he has a
(02:39):
tube in his throat right now to assist with his breathing.
He has been put to sleep. Uh so so then,
I mean, I don't know if you can call that
a medically induced coma, but he has been put to sleep,
uh so they can work on him. Uh. These are
the latest updates that we have of Damar Hamlin up
until this moment. And uh, there's no whether the game
(03:00):
is going to be played again. If it's going to
be played, but they play tomorrow, will they not? Are
the Bill is gonna stay in Cincinnati? I assume they
will all stay in Cincinnati overnight. Um, unless what he's
got bow Benson, we're in there. What are the Bills doing? Yeah,
per per Joe Danimen of Fox nineteen, in Cincinnati, the
Bills are flying home tonight and they're not staying in Cincinnati,
but some uh some people from the organization will remain
(03:23):
and they're flying home. Yeah, that's from That's a little weird.
Fox nineteen in Cincinnati. Yet that's a little weird. I don't.
I don't, that's kind of strange. I would have I
think they would have stayed. It is a little weird
that they didn't stay. But I don't look that. It's
just trying trying to figure out the permutations, right, and
(03:44):
and all of it. You know, not always is gonna
make sense. Is it going to be in the fashion
style timing? Uh, that anybody necessarily wants or or thinks
they would do in similar circumstance. So in this moment,
I just pull back and just hope for Hamlet, his family, friends,
obviously all his teammates that you know, there there's some
(04:08):
level of of assurance, peace, camaraderie, whatever they need to
lean into in the moment. Yeah, and it does hit
a little surprising, which would indicate that there's no imminent
desire or scheduling to put this game on, if that's
(04:29):
the case. But yeah, certainly the curiosities as we try to,
you know, cross all the teas down, all the eyes
now while while we are continuing to pray and have
great thoughts for him and his family, Just a little
bit about Damar Hamlet, because he's someone that look, you
hear his name. Now everybody knows who he is, but
nobody really knew anything about him coming into this this game.
And like even even the most ardent of NFL fans,
(04:52):
you would say, Okay, what you know? Do you do?
You know the starting safeties for your opposing team, And
like I'm like I told you the beginning of the show.
I knew his name a little bit because he played
it Pitt and you know, at four games against Syracuse
and you know, one of the best cornerbacks in the country,
and you know, you know, so I remember him in
his career a little bit um. But this is someone
who in looking and looking at his life and what
(05:13):
what he has fought to get to this point. He
grew up in in an area called mckey's Rocks, Pennsylvania.
This is where he is running his fundraiser that I'll
tell you, we got even better news on this part
of it. Now. He has been running a Chasing MS
Foundation community toy drive, something near and dear to his heart.
He wants to get toys for kids, and he's committed
to using his platform to positively impact the community that
(05:35):
raised him. So again it's on go fund me at
Chasing EM's Foundation and uh he wanted to raise twenty
dollars for this and now it's up to let me
hit refresh. I'll give you the big abuse problem. It's
now up to over nine hundred thousand dollars. So just
in the last couple of hours, UH, donations have come
in a hundred dollar goal and it is now up
(05:58):
to nine hundred thousand dollars. So I really again, I
can't wait from to wake up and hear this news. Hey, dude,
your toy drive is blown up. Man, you're gonna have
You're gonna have a lot of money to spend, man,
and go get for all these kids. So it's great,
great news. Now what he has had just to tell
you a little bit about his life, he has said, Look,
I had a very difficult upbringing, right. I read a
(06:18):
couple of interviews he had did coming out of college
the Personality Profiles. He did an interview where he estimates
half the people he knew that he was friends with
growing up are dead, that they were killed because it was,
you know, where he's from. It was a very difficult,
uh part of Pennsylvania to grow up in. And it
wasn't it wasn't gang. It wasn't all gang or drugs.
(06:39):
It was sometimes a disagreement would end in someone pulling
out a gun. And he went through some of the
people that that he knew growing up. He says, yeah,
it might be no close friends that I knew. Um,
his mom knew that she wanted to have get him,
uh to have a life where he can succeed if
football was his was his way to go. She got
him into private school and he got a scholar scholarship
(07:01):
to Pitt and he went there as one of the hype.
I think he was the number one defensive player in
the state when he went to When he went to
Pitt out of out of high school, and he had
an injury that nobody could figure out. Like he went
there and every Okay, this guy is gonna be the
next great job, Like here's your here's your next revs. Right,
because you know Reevas Pitt and here comes you know,
it's shut down corner a bit. And he had a
(07:22):
hernia injury that got misdiagnosed and it was it was
mystery that he couldn't do the normal things he could
do on the field, and no one knew what it was.
And once they found out that according to the to
the article I read that, um, it was just mistreated
a little bit. And once they figured out sports hernia
versus regular hernia, he was on the field and he
(07:43):
was able to become the player he was. He's taken
by the Bills in the sixth round of the draft,
and you look, when you're you're taking in the sixth round,
you're hoping I can stick around for a little while, right,
I can play a couple of years. I can play
on special teams, maybe work my way up, and that's
what I want to do. And when mikea. Hyde got
hurt earlier this year, looks one of the best safeties
in the NFL. You've heard about the the hide, pour
(08:05):
your tandem. How good it's been for Buffalo for the
last few years. Um he jumped into a starting role
and Leslie Frasier, defensive coordinator uh even said he has
been growing uh both physically as as a player and
as a leader. He is the number two player on
the Bills and tackles this year with one he started
thirteen games. And this is Bill's defense. That's one of
(08:27):
the top five units in the game. And you know
you normally use a player like Micah Hyde. You go, okay,
you know, now we we're gonna have a tough time
replacing him. And he's been able to come in and start,
and the Bill's defense hasn't missed a beat. And it
really is something to see this, you know, especially when
you get thrown into a situation like that where hey,
I'm a backup. How many snaps am I getting in
(08:48):
a game? And you know I'm playing on special teams
and now, hey, guess what, dude, get your your sixty snaps.
Get ready, you're starting next week. And he gets thrown
right in the fire with no reps. And I just
keep thinking back to any given Sunday when Jamie Fox
was eating the chips on the sideline. He was going
and he throws up. He's like, what do you need up?
Going in? Everybody's heard going he throws up before he
goes in. Uh, you know, it's just like, hey, you
(09:09):
know what, you're the next man up, You're going in.
And he goes in. And he's been having a really
really good season ninety one tackles, as you said, sixty
three solo up, appearing in fifteen games thus far. So
we we look at a little bit of a playing
time as a rookie. But to your point, right, we
we've been talking a lot this NFL season about the
next man up mentality. Were commemorating David Blow playing the
(09:33):
other day at quarterback. So you never know when that
opportunity is gonna come. And and you're surrounded obviously on
a great squad, which means you're not just a guy, right,
because there's ambitions there. Right, this is not a Alright,
we're gonna test players out and see how things go. No,
there's a team with championship aspirations. So the trust was
(09:54):
there putting him in, and he's responded responded, well, We've
talked about him a bit throughout the season as we've
spotlighted the Bill's defense. Uh, because you need to write
there's a lot about Josh Allen and and Stefon Diggs
and company, questions about the run game, which is actually
seventh in the league coming in tonight. But but Hamlet
(10:16):
a guy who helped fortify that back end because they've
been beset by injuries, right, you lose Millard for the
year and and other things that you've had to overcome.
And he's been a big part of what they did.
So you know, as you you pull into a spot
like that and and have that level of impact, you're
also more included in that inner circle of the guys, right,
(10:37):
not that everybody's not in, but you're making big plays
and contributing on that kind of level. So when you
saw the raw emotion of the teammates, that's it's one
of their guys, and that's that's the next level. You know,
kind of inner workings that we we spotlight as best
we can write, the emotion and the camaraderie that goes
(10:58):
through and in this moment, you know, a bit of
a celebration of the battle to to become the player
he had in that defense. UH the Jason Smith throw
with Mike Carmon live from the tirect dot com studios.
Twitter at how about a frescup, Mike hat swollen dome again.
I We'll have more on DeMar Hamlin throughout the night. Again.
That's the latest news from UH. Jordan Rooney is is
(11:21):
the man's name, who's his marketing director. His vitals are
back to normal. They've put him to sleep to put
a breathing tube down his throat. They are currently running
tests we will provide updates as we have them. So
the whole world is is with Damar Hamlin right now.
Whether you knew him before, whether you knew a little
bit about him, whether you're the the you know, a
big football fan, you know a lot about his career,
(11:43):
just a little bit about what he's gone through to
make it to the NFL, UH and and getting out.
So there's going to be uh, we're getting this right now.
Hang on is coming in right now. Uh PR folks
from the hospital are going to speak to the media
to update to condu shin of Damar Hamlin. No specific
time is given yet. This is from C. Trent Rosencrantz's
(12:05):
Twitter account. Uh so we're going to get an update
on Hamlin at some point soon. We're starting to see
some of the uh coverage coming from outside the hospital
with what's going on for tomorrow Hamlin. It was pretty Uh,
it was a pretty quick jump from hey, here's the
field and the game is canceled. We're not gonna play
football tonight the rest of the night to now let's
(12:27):
go on and see what is happening with tomorrow Hamlin.
So again, that's the latest we have right now on
Hamlin on his situation. Hopefully we will get an update
soon and we'll be able to bring it to you
when there is. I would assume there will be one
before midnight, just by judging how news, just by judging
how the news cycle goes, and you and I, you know,
(12:47):
doing news like this for the last for the last
few years, I would assume there will be one before midnight.
Uh not not to make the local news, but usually
by midnight, that's when you know you're gonna get something.
And they wouldn't announce something was coming. You wouldn't hear
something was coming unless it was coming relatively soon. Sure
they could have said, hey, we have an update coming
at three am East Coast time or midnight when you know, Okay,
(13:09):
we're doing a lot of things. So the fact that
we're hearing there could be an update soon, maybe this
tells me. And again we're just I'm just trying to
play a you know, wait and see, you know, to
figure things out a little bit. Um. Maybe they just
have to has to rest and they have to wait
and see how things go. Maybe they have their waiting
for test results and it's not gonna they're not gonna
get anything else. For a while so we can give
(13:30):
you an update, because we normally don't get updates when
it's an evolving situation. Normally you get an update. Went, Okay,
here's where we're at, at least for the next couple
of hours, and this is where we there. We expect
we could have another update, you know, four hours from now,
early in the morning, late in the morning, whatever it is.
But if they if there is word of an update coming,
I would assume it's in the next half hour forty
(13:52):
five minutes and that there may not be a big
medical update after this. If this is what we've gotten
from his UH, from his PR, from his marketing director,
maybe that's what we're gonna get from the hospital. But
in trying to live every minute here and trying to
figure out what news is is is good and what
news isn't, I have to say at least the needle
(14:13):
is moving a little bit towards the positive. Me I
don't know, but just judging by what we're hearing, what
we're being told, I gotta I gotta think and hope
at least it's it's a little bit on the positive side. Look, Hey,
he's he's vitals are back to normal. That's good. Uh,
you know, he's breathing, they have a tube in. You know,
it doesn't it doesn't seem like he's in immediate danger.
I mean, just trying to to see, trying to part
(14:34):
through those words that that is person, the pr agent,
uh whatever the exact title is, that that put out
on his behalf. So you know, we try to find
the positivity and in the interim keeps sending all the
good thoughts that we can and you know, try to
promote you know, his charitable aspect of it, and that
(14:57):
it brought a community together, right, people putting their emotions
and recognizing the humanity of the situation. And we'll take
that as the positive. And then we'll wait for the
next word from the medical professionals as to where we're
at in this process. And I'm sure we'll hear something
more from from Park Avenue or from the teams as
(15:20):
we get a little further removed from the post poem
into this game. Fox Sports Radio The Jason Smith Show
with Mike Carmon. So hopefully you learned a little bit
about Tamar Hamlin there in the last few minutes and
in his life, you know, growing up mckey's Rocks, getting
to University of Pittsburgh and getting to the National Football League.
We all have more on this coming up next, including
just just something that kind of I never thought about
(15:42):
the perspective of how certain events and and how something
like tonight affects so many people. But I get a
story to tell coming up in a couple of minutes
that I want to break down and talk about as
it relates to what happened with tomorrow Hamlet, So keep
it right here. That's coming up next. Jason Smith, Mike
Harmon Fox Sports Radio. Be sure to catch live editions
of The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at
(16:04):
ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio
and the I Heart Radio app Fox Sports Radio. The
Jason Smith Show with My best friend Mike Harmon. Dope
the Chasing MS Foundation Community toy drive to mar Hamlin's
charity of his goal. It is now to nine fifty
(16:26):
four thousand dollars money pouring in to help something near
and dear to his heart as we continue to wait
uh for an update on him. Tomar Hamlin, who collapsed
making a tackle during Monday Night Football's game tonight between
the Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals. The game was postponed.
(16:47):
The players on the field, UH watched him get worked on.
They performed CPR on him for a good ten minutes. Uh.
He was not breathing on his own. The pictures and
the visuals you have seen from this is stunning and watching,
you know, seeing this story continue to evolve. The thing
that that continues to hit me on this is that
(17:07):
you see the looks on all the players face, even
Joe Burrow who was just sitting on the ground. You're
watching because when you give somebody CPR, you you're danger.
You're breaking the ribs because you kind of have to
when you're giving CPR. You're watching this for ten minutes
and happened, and you see Josh Allen is almost in tears,
and so are other players and they're hugging, and it
was you know, the game just stopped right there, and
(17:29):
right there should have been the decision to all right,
the game's over. Okay. We have seen games before where
players have gotten injured, they've been immobilized, they're taking off
the field, we don't know a lot about what's going on,
and they continue to play games. Right, it happens that
way we have seen that. This is when you're seeing
a guy have CPR performed on him for ten minutes. Uh,
(17:50):
this is when you have to say, Okay, the game
is over. And it still took the NFL about an
hour to figure it out. And in the end the
right decision was made and they decide dupe to postpone thing.
And now whether the bills told them we're not playing,
they made the right decision. It's still studying that it
took that long. It's an easy decision to make. It's
one phone call from Roger Goodell. I mean I get
(18:12):
the whole Well, the nflpa's getting no. No, you know,
there's one phone call. We'll figure the rest of it out. Well,
it's is It's a human thing to do. And in
seeing this and thinking about this, it brought me back
and I've been thinking about this a lot. It's been
in my head the last couple of hours. I was
a freshman at Syracuse in that was my that was
my first year there. And on December twenty one, that
(18:35):
was the explosion of PanAm flight one oh three over
lockerby Scotland, UH terrorist attack that killed everybody on board,
including thirty five students who were coming back to Syracuse
from a semester abroad. They had all spent the semester
overseas and they were flying back. One of the one
of the kids flying back went to my high school.
(18:56):
I didn't know hi. There was a couple of years
ahead of me, so I was a freshman, think he
was a junior. I didn't really know him, but he
was on the plane and it was I remember the story.
It was all the news. It was a different time,
for sure. You're you're going back now thirty some odd
years and and you know, if you if you are
old enough to remember, you remember it. If not, it
(19:16):
was a big news story that comes out it's a
terrorist attack, and it was a plane was was blown up,
and it had the news came in, if I remember,
right around noon, and we were talking about it in
the hallways about what's going sides in the dorm at
that point, and a couple of people were friends with
a guy whose girlfriend potentially didn't know if she was
(19:38):
there or not. They were trying to figure out and
that was the kind of day it was. And you know,
part of the story was of these two fifty nine
you get the details thirty five of them went to
Syracuse and it's a it's a moment that I can
say maybe the campus still hasn't recovered from. It's still
something that that permeates the days following that. We're a
(20:00):
blur walking to class there there are news people there
wanting to talk to you. Like I didn't interview going
to class because I just happened to be walking to
class and one of the local people said, hey, or
do you go here? Can I talk to you for
a couple of minutes, Like a woman from Channel nine
did an interview with the Syracuse Post Standard. Just they
were talking to everybody about finding out what it was.
And I gotta go back to the story because the
news happened at about noon, newness, I would say, and
(20:23):
I don't I don't remember. Did I go to class
that day? I don't remember, but I remember we had
a basketball game schedule that night against Western Michigan, and
at the time, we were really good. I mean, look,
this is back when Syricuse basketball was in the late eighties.
It was hey, it was we were great. Right, We're
coming off the Final four, uh in in eighty seven
against Indiana. We were, you know, winning the Big East
every year. Sherman Douglas and Derek Coleman. We had a
(20:45):
game against Rectrom Michigan and we played the game, and
I remember they started the game by asking for a
moment of silence for the victims of the flight. And
we played the game. And I didn't think about it
then because you know, I'm seven teen years old, you know,
But but I didn't think about it too much. But
I remember at the time, going, we're gonna play this game.
(21:07):
We're gonna play the game. Everybody just died. But I
didn't think about it in a you know, a sports
talk radio and thinking about you know, like an adult.
I'm like, I can't playing. Everybody just died. And I
remember having this conversation with my roommate who was an
editor at the newspaper, and we were on completely I
remember he said to me, what do you what did
you we send Western Michigan home without a game? And
I said, yeah, like like, wait, am I wrong about this? Now? Yeah?
(21:29):
We set him home without a game. We don't play
a game. And you know, it was a different time
because at the time when this stuff came out, when
when this news came out, it wasn't the instant news
that we knew. We knew something had happened, the plane exploded.
How many people had died? Did we get confirmation? And
the chancellor, Melvin Egger's of of the school, decided to
(21:52):
play the game, if I remember this right, because he
thought so many people were already coming to the game
that it would have been too different cult to have
to just cancel it. And then everybody coming for the
game has to turn and go back. Right, Western Michigan
was coming and syracuses there and fans are coming to
the game. Remember Beeheim was said he was all for
canceling it, but it wasn't his decision. Uh. Now, in
(22:13):
the end of day I decided, hey, we're not gonna play. Yeah,
you could have done that, but still, and I know
in in in later years, uh, Melvin Eggers regretted that
decision playing the game, But it didn't really hit me
and you know, with with perspective at that point. But
as time goes on, I think, yeah, I know it
was a different time in the information flow, Well what
really happened this and that? But it seems like these
(22:34):
moral decisions should be pretty easy to say, oh plane
blew up and and third, okay, let's let's cancel the game.
But then you get caught up in so much of
the machinations of things that that's a decision that gets
made um tonight with the maschinations of the of the football,
of the of the business of football. We've seen players
(22:55):
get hurt like this before and we always pray that
they're okay. We see them leave the field and and
we hope they are right, and we go back to
the game and hear the same things. Boy tough to
go back to football after this, But we go back
to football, we play were an update after and hopefully
they're okay. And you know, Ryan Shazier, we're hoping he
was okay. And you know, we're playing in the game.
But morals just like it should be easy and and
(23:17):
and I don't understand how it's they're so difficult at
times where your gut reaction normally is the right one.
And if the gut reaction is, oh, yeah, we can't
play this game, right, we have to cancel the game.
I mean that that's really what it what it should be,
And especially after the point of when players have to
see players have seen other players getting worked on on
(23:38):
the field many times before, but after you see CPR
given in a in a life or death situation on
the field, Yeah, that's the game. That that's the game.
That's where someone has to stand up and say you
know what, yeah, no, that's it. Whatever heat comes in,
you want to fire me for making that decision, Okay,
I'll let But that's where it was. Okay, that's the
point of no return. That's where this game is done.
(23:59):
And we and you know, sit around waiting an hour
and then especially you know, having to say we're gonna
resume in five minutes, because that was what the first
report was was that after this happened, he leaves the field,
we're gonna right, we'll suspend the game. Now we're gonna
resume in five minutes. Well, well, whoa, whoa, whoa, we'll
wait wait resuming five that the field is cleared, stretch
go back to playing football was kind of the at
least what was intimated in that moment, right announcement over
(24:20):
the p A and everything else. The coaches and just
say all right, they went back and talked to each
other and went and now we'll get more information over time.
But some of the initial reports are it's the coaches
on behalf of their players, uh, that that really stood
up and said this isn't working, that they really needed
to talk and convince the Commissioner's office in Park Avenue,
(24:44):
and we'll get the devil will be in the details
of this, and you know, folks will will have their
their opinions, and certainly as we're here on radio, that's
that's the job. This is the story is now and
it's another failing by the League Office in terms of
acting with any side type of swift response to exigent
(25:06):
circumstances as related to player health, which we've had numerous
occasions this week. I mean, how many hours have been
spent bloviating over to a tongue of violoa, Should he play?
Should he not? What do we do? How do we
keep improving protocols, concussion protocols, self reporting of instances in
games and all of those things. We're really literally coming
(25:29):
out of a full week of that into this for
the League Office, great because they had to have a
whole investigation of how that was handled, and they they
announced their results on Friday. For those that haven't seen it,
the the act of the defibrillator coming out and being
used is the most terrifying thing you'll ever see. I
(25:52):
had a neighbor pass away. She she collapsed in in
our parking lot of our complex. I happened to be
going outside and I was there as the ambulance came
up and performed this act. The violence to it, the
like you're you're drained, like for days like she passed away,
(26:15):
and that was the last that I saw of this
sweet old woman in our complex. And it just thinking
that that's they're watching their guy that's playing the game
that they're playing. And to think they're gonna immediately able
to turn on all right, let's go second down in
five is assinine to me that that would even be
contemplated for a minute. Um, I'm choking up thinking about her,
(26:40):
especially when you don't have to you don't have this,
that's we didn't need to have this. But but that's
the other point. It's game. It's an entertainment vehicle. Obviously,
it's a multibillion dollar business. And you know, you're looking
at pragmatism. You're looking at you know, your yea beholding
you know, if you're Roger Goodell, to all all of
(27:02):
the owners, to the millions of fans, the people to
your point about the Syracuse game, the people that came
to the game, Like you're trying to take all those
into consideration, obviously, so it makes it a more complicated
thing for him. But from the outside looking in, it's like, no, no, no,
this one, this one isn't a hard one. This one
is you know, hit the plunger and then let's have
(27:24):
our time. Let's let the players, you know, be with
their their teammate and reconvene when it's when we have news,
when we have you know, something where where they're not
on their their emotions edge to be able to be
in the right frame of mind to play a game.
It's it's just difficult to imagine that process. And certainly,
(27:48):
you know, the decision decision making, the leadership of the coaches,
you know, being being talked about, and all of that
coming back in and the humanity of the game being
shown once again, write something that we we know the
league as the beheemth that it is will struggle with.
And I think we're we're looking at both McDermott and
(28:12):
Taylor in this moment and saying, you know, they were leaders,
right and they took their their teams back into the
locker room, and at least from the outside looking in,
that they forced the issue in looking out for their
players as people as people, which was which is the
key part in all of this process. Yeah, that that's
(28:34):
kind of what I'm waiting for to see, like, how
did how did this, how did this go about? How
did this go down? After after what happened, Because I
mean I went I am stunned that after the CPR happened,
Sean McDermott didn't just say we're leaving. You can if
we forfeit. We forfeit. I don't give a crap, but
we're leaving. We're going to the hospital. Means that might
(28:56):
have been it. When I met at a he and
Taylor and they had a very quick conversation and you
saw both coaches lead their teams to the locker room,
that that might have been it just saying no, we can't.
I I hope, I I really hope it was. I
really hope it was. Well, I shouldn't say that. I
hope the NFL came in and made the right decision
(29:17):
in the end, and they didn't have to. We're not
going to find out that there were certain demands that
were made, or they had to draw the line in
the sand. I want to hope that the right thing.
I always want to hope the right thing is done.
I want to hope that the NFL it was just, hey, hey,
we were never going to continue. There needed to be
some things that were said. We had to we had
to figure out. There's a lot of the red tape
we had to go through to get there. I'm hoping
(29:38):
that's what it turns out to, because I don't I
don't want it to be something bad, But I wonder,
I wonder if it was you know, how much of
it was the coaches drawn a line in the sand,
because you know, and to talk about the bills that
the Bengals didn't want to play, that this could have
been one of this could have been one of their guys,
you know. But the same thing. But but think about
t Higgins, right, they think about the tackle in and
(29:58):
of itself, right, the con tag there, what's going on
in his mind? Right? The process, So they're being there
for their teammate who's got to be struggling with this
right all the way down, Like it's it's on both
sides of this that you're feeling, you know, for for
your teammate involved in in this play that will now
(30:20):
be be part of the NFL's history and hopefully we
get a good result for Hamlet out of it. That's
where all our thoughts and and energies have to go to.
But yeah, from your point of the bangles the shot
of Joe Burrow like in the immediate aftermath, eyes wide
and just shaking his head like what is what is happening?
What is going on here? What is going on? And
(30:42):
it really and it really puts a lot of things
in perspective, and again that that should have been an
easy decision. Right now, let's find out what's trying to
get the wide world of sports with Steve to say
or s D. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the
Syracuse story. It's reminded me of a couple of other things.
Remember after nine eleven baseball games were canceled for nearly
a week after the Kennedy assassination. Three, most notably the
(31:06):
NFL played games that weekend. The a f L did not.
Apparently there were NBA games that weekend, there were NHL,
but Big ten football postponed games and the a f
L postponed as well. A f L NFL had not
merged yet at that time. And more to the point,
maybe a couple of summers ago, remember Denmark soccer star
(31:26):
Christian Ericson collapsing on the field during a Euro Championships game.
Not due to a contact injury, it was cardiac arrest
in this case, and the team doctor for Denmark said
uh later after the game that the player's heart stopped beating,
that he was quote gone, that they shocked him back
to life on the field at the stadium and stunning lee.
(31:50):
That game resumed that night. We mentioned earlier in the
show that our friend Jason lackinfora had retweeted and many
others have now the Toys for Chill Drin charity that
DeMar Hamlin has been involved with in his hometown in Pennsylvania.
We can update that this charity, which had a goal
of raising two thousand five dollars apparently for back to
(32:11):
school supplies as well, has now received over forty different donations.
It's over one million dollars for this community toy drive tonight.
It's astounding. This is the Chasing MS Foundation community toy drive.
It's on go fund me. It benefits the daycare center
(32:32):
in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania. Just amazing. Just to back up
what has gone on tonight's and this was just before
nine pm Eastern time. The serious injury to Buffalo Bill
safety DeMar Hamlin the Monday night football game and Cincinnati
was postponed in the first quarter. Hamlin is in critical
condition at a local hospital. His marketing rep said in
(32:54):
his last update over an hour ago, de Mar's vital
signs are back to normal. They are currently running tests.
The medical center now says it does not expect to
issue an update this evening. Hamlin of the Bills made
a tackle, stood up, and then collapsed motionless on the field.
On the play, the ball carrier ran right into Hamlin's chest,
leading with his shoulder. Hamlin was just holding on to
(33:16):
make the tackle. An ambulance was on the field within
five minutes. CPR was administered on the field. Hamlin's uniform
was cut off him. He was reportedly given oxygen as
he was eventually loaded onto a stretcher and into an ambulance.
Earlier today, Penn State won the Rose Bowl over Utah
thirty five twenty one to lane edge. USC in the
(33:37):
Cotton Bowl forty wins for l s U and Mississippi State,
as well. College hoops Rutgers one at number one, produced
sixty five sixty four NBA. The Nets one their twelve
straight game victories for the Lakers in Philly and Cleveland
and overtime beat Chicago. Donovan Mitchell of the Cavs seventy
one points and eleven assists. But there is no greater
(33:59):
or more Warton's story than what you guys have spent
the night talking about, and that is the health of
Bill safety Tomorrow Hamlin back to you. Thanks for Steve.
I mean, I I of all the video we've seen
of the Bills players who obviously they're closer with Hamlin
because they know him. He's their brother, and and they
go to battle with him every week in football. I
just can't get the Joe Burrow thing out of my
(34:21):
head just and they because look, Josh Allen's a star
quarterback and I get you can see him and he
just put out a big tweet please pray for our brother.
It's the Joe Burrow. I just can't get of him
just standing there like, what what is what is going on? What?
What is happening? This this should mean, this is this
shouldn't happen? What is what is this? What is this
all about? I just can't And they stayed on that
(34:42):
shot for a long time. Obviously, look he's a star player,
but they stayed on that shot of him forever, and
I just I just keep thinking about they can't get
that out of my head like like that. That's what
I think of when I think about this is him
just going this is football? What? What? What is what
is this? It's it's everything about the sport just summed
up in in in that one bit of you know,
ten fift second video. Yeah, the replays and and as
(35:04):
we've watched it, and even in the immediacy, Jason, it
would look like a tackle, right, a hard hit, pulled
the guy to the ground and got back up, and
then we saw what unfolded from there. So you know,
plays you've had and gone through thousands of times and
practices and games, and in this moment things went catastrophically wrong.
(35:29):
So as players, you know, you're trying to reconcile that
what you've been doing all this time, what you continue
to do as your profession, uh, your teammates and opponents,
there's that respect in between the white lines. That that
was just I don't know that you'll ever see it
more evident than what was on display. Seeing some other
reports of Stefon Diggs and and going to the hospital
(35:51):
and and being stopped by security and having a reporter
verify who he was. Okay, okay, good, come on, come on,
it's a team. So he got it, got in saying, hey,
we have to be there for our guys. So um
more as as the night unfolds, Uh, something good to
think about out in this situation. Some positive that we're
(36:13):
gonna get to coming up next. Keep just to think
about this when it when it comes to what's happening
is we continue to hope and pray for Damar Hamlin.
That's coming up next right here. Jason and Mike Fox
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tirect dot com the way tire buying should be. Be
sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show
with Mike Harman weekdays at ten pm Eastern seven pm Pacific. Hey,
it's Ben, host of The Fifth Hour with Ben Mallor.
Would mean a lot to have you join us on
our weekly auditory journey. You're asking one in God's name
is the Fifth Hour I'll tell you it's a spin
off of the Ben Maller Show. A cold hit Overnights
(37:40):
on FS are Why should you listen? Picture if you will?
A world will. We chat with captains of industry in media,
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Ben Mallow on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast
or wherever you get your podcast, Fox Sports Radio, The
Jason Smith Show with Mike Carmen from the tire Act
(38:00):
dot Com Studios. We'll give you a full update. Uh
in in in in greater depth on Tamar Hamlin, who
right now is in critical condition at a Cincinnati area hospital.
He collapsed after making a tackle in the first half
of tonight's game against the Bengals. The game was then postponed.
Uh He was given CPR on the field. He was breathing,
(38:22):
but not on his own. But right now he is
has his vitals back to normal. We are expecting some
sort of press conference or an update coming up in
a few minutes, but just one thing at one positive,
one thing that hopefully is is going to help go
his way with this as as as as he fights
and and he keeps sending all your thoughts and Carmen
(38:44):
good and good prayers to Cincinnati. Is that you know
he he think about this. He has some kind of
episode on the field, whether it was part of the
traumatic result of the of the hit the tackle he
maybe maybe it was maybe, I mean it looked like
it was just some what of a hard tackle, but
you don't know what it was and what happened. Uh.
The fact that you know he has this episode and
(39:07):
he you know, falls back and hits the ground, and
the speed in which they get to the field and
they begin treating him. I just think about that for
a second because if if it's you or I in
a mall, right and we're walking and and and we collapse,
like what happens? You gotta call for help. Someone's gotta come.
What's happening? Okay, let's go get somebody. Now. Somebody comes
(39:30):
and maybe it's somebody who has some kind of medical training,
maybe it's somebody who doesn't. And then you're calling an ambulance.
It's gotta get to the mall and find a place
to park and then get in how long until you're
being worked on? Right? That that's the whole thing and
that that's that's that's the game for a lot of
times when you have an episode like that. This was
something that at least and and I think about this
is that he can and they were on the field
(39:52):
in seconds working on him, evaluating him and figuring out
what went wrong. Initially they saw them, they they put
his head, They mobilize that. They started working on him
right away. They were getting him CPR very quickly. They
were able to keep him. Look and he's alive right now.
And and and while you know, we'll we'll see how
things go as far as what the the treatment actually
(40:14):
was and what they did. Just the fact that they
were able to get to him so fast and start
working because of this is what an NFL game has.
You have these doctors that have been doctors for a
long time, a lot of medical people that are on
hand right away. They can cannot even start working on
you in seconds. That is one of the positives of
the NFL stadiums. And we've seen that relayed because we've
(40:36):
had medical personnel from different teams on the show through
the years, and that that is certainly one thing you see,
the mobilization very quickly uh to be able to react
and and you go do your normal checkups wherever you are.
If you're do for one, make sure you go get it,
get that done. But they always talk about time, right
and being such a factor in everything that that immediacy
(41:00):
of response. Yeah, and is it's heroic in ways right
that we'll hopefully get a good result out of this.
But the mobilization, that's the one thing from an NFL
personnel standpoint, As much as we may but bemo in
the league office on the sidelines, they got a right
Jason Smith Mike Harmon Live from the tirect dot Com studios.
(41:24):
More on the evolving and breaking story involving Tomorrow Hamlin.
That's coming up next right here on Fox
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