Vikings Grappling With Emotions of Damar Hamlin Situation as They Prepare to Play

The Vikings, like the rest of the football world, have had a difficult week of sorting through their emotions following Bills safety Damar Hamlin's collapse on Monday night in Cincinnati.

After making what appeared to be a routine tackle, Hamlin stood up and then collapsed. The force to his chest had sent him into cardiac arrest. Medical personnel from the Bills and Bengals quickly administered CPR and an AED on the field, restoring Hamlin's heartbeat. He was transported by ambulance to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where he remains several days later.

The good news is that Hamlin has made notable improvement. Though he remains critically ill and has a ways to go in his recovery, doctors say Hamlin woke up on Thursday and has proven to be neurologically intact. He was able to hold people's hands and communicate via writing, even asking doctors "Did we win?"

"Yes, you won the game of life," they responded.

Monday night was an incredibly scary situation. It wasn't a normal football injury. There was no thumbs up from Hamlin, no guarantee that he was going to be OK. The game was suspended and eventually postponed, and for good reason — how could you ask players to continue competing while not knowing if Hamlin was going to pull through? The reality of the situation is that a 24-year-old nearly lost his life while playing football.

"It really caught me off guard," said Patrick Jones II, who was teammates with Hamlin for five years at the University of Pittsburgh. "I didn't really know what's going on. I just kept saying in my mind, you know, ‘Get up, get up, get up.’ I just saw how the whole thing played out and that’s when I just started praying for him and just thinking of his family and just keeping everybody in my prayers."

It's not unusual to see significant injuries occur during football games. Players understand the risks of playing such a violent, physical game. When Hamlin remained down for a long time, some players and coaches started to think about the worst-case scenarios that you see every now and then: a serious head injury or an issue with a player's neck and spinal cord, which could potentially involve paralysis.

"When I was playing this game, I never feared for my life," said Vikings special teams coordinator Matt Daniels, who spent four seasons in the NFL as a player. "I never considered the game to be life-threatening. At worst case, you're thinking more so of getting paralyzed or something like that, breaking my neck."

"That risk is always there, and as a football player you understand that, going back to the entire years you’ve been playing," Kirk Cousins said. "I remember Ryan Shazier’s injury, which I believe was also a Monday night game at the same stadium a few years ago. I remember watching that game live as well. Those are typically the serious injuries you tend to see are spinal column related, so for this one to be heart-related was a little more unique."

The specific nature of Hamlin's situation is what stood out to a lot of players. No one had ever seen something like that before, where a player's heart stops during a game. Cousins said he didn't even realize it was possible.

The incident has weighed heavily on the hearts and minds of Vikings players and coaches this week. Even though the vast majority of them had never met Hamlin, they describe the NFL as a brotherhood across all 32 teams. To see a fellow player go through something like that and nearly die during a game has been extremely hard for many to process.

"It touches really, really hard for us," said Harrison Phillips, who was teammates with Hamlin on the Bills last season. "We compete like hell when we’re out there against each other, but that is a brother that I look at when I look across the line of scrimmage."

Phillips, whose locker was near Hamlin's last year, was at the Timberwolves game when he heard the news. He left early and immediately reached out to many of his former Bills teammates, then stayed awake until they landed in Buffalo. On Tuesday, he wanted to do something, so he catered food for Hamlin's family, Bills medical staffers, and the doctors and nurses at the ICU. Phillips did so again on Wednesday.

Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell reached out to all of the team's players and coaches on Monday night after the incident occurred, and it's been discussed at meetings throughout the week. O'Connell not only wanted to let them know how much he was aware of what they were going through, but to also communicate that there are mental health resources available for players and coaches and their families. And, to help ease players' minds, O'Connell has talked about the kind of medical planning and responses that are in place if something like that happens.

"We just want to be there for them," O'Connell said. "Their mental health, their emotional health, is very, very important to me and our entire organization, so we just want to make sure they understand both that the resources are available to them, and then I did want to educate them on some of the things that we do have at our games — at all NFL games — from a medical personnel standpoint."

"You think of playing quarterback in professional football as a high-pressure job," Cousins said. "But I thought of the medical professionals who were addressing the situation on the field on Monday night, and that’s a whole other definition of it."

The Vikings returned to the team's facility this week, with Hamlin still in their thoughts and prayers, knowing they have to prepare to play a football game on Sunday in Chicago. It's going to be a bit odd, at least at first, for the entire league to take the field this weekend after what happened.

"It definitely puts fear in your heart," Patrick Peterson said. "Because as players, you've never seen anyone have their life revived on a football field. Seeing that, it is going to be something that's in the back of players' minds, it is going to be something that guys think about going into the game. It's going to be hard for at least the first couple plays, for sure."

But a couple things help. One is knowing that Hamlin has improved throughout the week. Another is understanding just how rare what happened to him was.

"You can't play this game tip-toeing," Peterson said. "You have to play at a high level, at full speed. I believe after the first couple plays, guys getting back into the thick of things, now getting a better understanding that Damar is doing much better, now guys can be a little more at ease, having a little more information...after the first drive or two, things will start to settle down."

"I do think that what happened Monday night is hard to ignore or shake off, but I also think that we’re professionals and we have a job to do and once you go play, you have to go play," Cousins said. "I do think that every game, you’re aware of the risks and you still have to go play. You really also try to trust your training and your instincts and rely on those, and also a lot of prayer and praying for protection."

If there was a silver lining from the Hamlin incident, it was that it showed how powerful the NFL — coaches, teams, players, fans — can be when they come together for good. So many players and others reached out on social media to share their well-wishes and prayers. A fundraiser for Hamlin's annual toy drive received nearly $7.5 million in donations. The outpouring of support has been incredible to see.

It was also a reminder that the relationships built through football are bigger than the game. One focus for the Vikings this week has been showing love to the teammates around them and checking in to see how everyone's doing.

"I think the biggest thing is just being there for everybody," Jones said. "During times like this, you’ve just got to be there for people. People may be going through stuff you don’t know about, and you’ve just got to really be there for them, just pray for people, and always just cherish people, their presence and everything."

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