NFL’s Troy Vincent says NFL did NOT want to resume play after Damar Hamlin’s cardiac arrest

NFL executive Troy Vincent is doubling down on his assertion that the league had no intention of resuming play Monday in Cincinnati after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest during a game against the Bengals.

At the time, the ESPN play-by-play announcer repeatedly told viewers that the league planned to resume play after a five-minute warm-up period. Additionally, San Francisco Chronicle reporter Mike Silver reported that the NFL’s ‘first impulse’ was to try to resume play until players and coaches refused and walked off the field.

“I just want to be clear,” Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations and a former player in the league, said Wednesday during a conference call with reporters. “Just that suggestion alone was inappropriate, insensitive, and frankly lacking both empathy and compassion for the situation of Damar, who is still and was fighting for his life to this day. It was completely missing, and it was so insensitive to think that we were even thinking of playing it again.

NFL executive Troy Vincent is doubling down on his claim that the league had no intention of resuming play Monday in Cincinnati after Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest.

“The only thing that mattered to me, the team here, the people in the stadium and the coaches was the health and well-being of Damar and getting those coaches back to the locker room so they could look those players in the eye and see who they are.” is it so. They were hurt, there was a lot of pain. And talking to the commissioner [Roger Goodell] and communicating with everyone, it was important… we just couldn’t play.’

Buck has also doubled down on his version of events in an interview with the New York Post, saying that ESPN officiating expert John Parry was in direct contact with the league.

“They said they would give these players five minutes of warm-up to get them ready,” Buck told the Post after Vincent initially denied that claim earlier in the week.

ESPN also defended Buck’s reporting in a statement.

“There was constant real-time communication between ESPN and the league and game officials,” the network said. “As a result of that, we reported what we were told at the time and immediately updated fans as new information was learned. This was an unprecedented circumstance that evolved rapidly. Throughout the night, we refrained from speculating.

The Washington Post has reported a possible explanation, writing that Parry usually talks to the league’s arbitration department, but “this decision had escalated beyond those Parry normally communicates with.”

Hamlin remains sedated in the intensive care unit at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center after collapsing at Paycor Stadium during Monday’s Bills-Bengals game.

His marketing representative, Jordon Rooney, told The Associated Press that his client is moving in a “positive direction.”

“We all remain optimistic,” Rooney said.