'Don't Quit!' Bills Ex Doug Flutie Reflects On Damar Hamlin, Comeback Player of The Year Award
With the 2024 NFL Honors taking place on Thursday night, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin appears primed to take home Comeback Player of the Year after his near-death experience over a year ago.
If/when Hamlin wins the award, he will be the first Bill to do since 1998 when quarterback Doug Flutie won it, the first time the Associated Press gave out the honor since the NFL-AFL merger.
Unlike Hamlin, though, Flutie didn't survive a near-death experience or anything similar. Instead, he won the award for helping the Bills reach the playoffs after he spent the previous eight years in the Canadian Football League. The contrast between these two scenarios goes to show how broad the definition of "comeback" can be, and the lack of a true criteria voters are given.
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Even with the wildly different circumstances, Flutie said he would be "proud" to share the award with Hamlin, who went through Hell and back to return to football. Ahead of Hamlin's (likely) big night, Flutie took the time to reflect on what the award means to him.
"It kind of established and validated me being back in the NFL. That's kind of the way I viewed it. It was very flattering to be acknowledged," Flutie told ESPN. "I think it's very important to acknowledge guys that fight adversity to get back. ... It's really kind of a resiliency-type award. Sometimes, you look at it as guys that just don't quit."
Despite his strong play in Buffalo, 1998 proved to be Flutie's only year with the Bills after coach Wade Phillips controversially benched him for the playoffs in favor of Rob Johnson. The Boston College legend then spent four years with the San Diego Chargers and one with the New England Patriots before retiring in 2006.
Flutie's comeback deserves praise, but Hamlin's incident sent shockwaves across the NFL and the world as a whole. Above all, Flutie hopes that the incident will help people realize that football players are just humans at the end of the day.
"Fans look at these guys on the field as almost superhero-ish where they're just these great athletes," Flutie said. "They don't realize they're just regular Joes that have the ability to go out there and mentally be tough and do these things and fight back through adversity.
"... That night brought it back to reality, that these guys have their own lives and families and wives and kids and I think it changes a little bit the perspective of a regular fan looking at a player and saying, 'Oh, he is just a player.' No, all of a sudden it became personal and it was the reality of it."
