Damar Hamlin has developed into a solid NFL safety for the Buffalo Bills over the past couple of years. Normally, that would just be impressive. But considering what Hamlin went through at the end of his second NFL season, his so-called ho-hum career feels like a real-life miracle.
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During a Week 17 matchup with the Cincinnati Bengals during the 2022 season, Hamlin, who had started 13 games and recorded 91 tackles up to that point, took a hit to the chest from Cincy WR Tee Higgins on a routine play. Hamlin got up after the tackle, but then collapsed on the field.
He was promptly taken to the hospital and reported to be in critical condition after suffering cardiac arrest on the football field, though first responders were able to restore his heartbeat.
Players and coaches from both teams had taken a knee around Hamlin as he was being treated on the field. The sports world seemed to stand still, and yet Joe Buck had a job to do.
The legendary commentator, son of another legendary commentator, had decades of experience, but even that could barely prepare him for such a moment. Yet he had to speak. In his first year at ESPN, he needed to find the words to help viewers understand and grapple with the horror unfolding before them. Buck recently shared how he handled that moment on air.
“I think the best thing we all did, was not speculate, and kinda took our time. And maybe the best thing was, we didn’t have any information. I didn’t have anything,” the commentator said (via The Pivot), adding,
“I didn’t know any more than what my eyes were telling me. And at the time, our director Jimmy Platt did a brilliant thing… We have that camera that hovers over the field; he took everything back. It would’ve been like an invasion of privacy almost.”
The game was canceled and did not count toward the final records of the Bills and Bengals. It was unprecedented but completely understandable. Thankfully, Hamlin made a full recovery and returned to start 14 games in 2024 after missing much of the 2023 season. He finished second and fourth in Comeback Player of the Year voting over the last two seasons.
Buck described just how incredible it is that Hamlin is playing professional football again after what he went through. As Buck said, when we were all watching it, no one would have bet on that being the end result.
“It was something I’d never seen, it was something I never wanna see again. I mean, thank GOD we know the end of the story. Which is, miraculously he comes back and he’s playing football again. I don’t think anybody would’ve taken that bet when that was all going on,” Buck continued.
“I was just thinking, ‘Okay, this is just an awful concussion. And we come back, they’re still working on him. And we take another break, and at that point, then it became a beehive of activit,y and I see them resuscitating him, and I’m thinking, ‘Are my eyes really seeing that? Like, are they giving hin CPR right now?'”
As we said, there’s no way to prepare for a situation like that. But if any NFL commentator could handle it, it was Joe Buck.
The son of Jack Buck, the iconic St. Louis Cardinals play-by-play announcer who also called Super Bowl IV and the Ice Bowl, Joe Buck joined Fox Sports at its inception in 1994 and remained with them through 2022.
During that time, he called Fox’s NFL Game of the Week, four Super Bowls, and 23 World Series Finals. He and his long-time partner, Troy Aikman, now ply their trade for ESPN on their Monday Night Football broadcasts.
