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Tee Higgins Tweets Support For Damar Hamlin; ESPN's Bart Scott Criticizes Higgins For Hit On Safety

Higgins is caught in the middle of the aftermath from Monday night.

Russ Heltman

In this story:

CINCINNATI — Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins was right in the middle of Monday night's horrific scene at Paycor Stadium and showed support for Bills safety Damar Hamlin on social media.

The safety tackled Higgins in the first quarter of Monday night's game and then Hamlin immediately collapsed after getting up from the play. Paramedics administered CPR and an AED on the field for nearly 10 minutes before transporting him to University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

"My prayers and thoughts go out to Damar Hamlin and the Hamlin Family. I’m praying that you pull through bro. Love," Higgins tweeted.

Fans immediately found a GoFundMe toy drive fundraiser that Hamlin started in 2020. The original goal was $2,500—as of this writing—the total had surpassed $3.8 million in donations. Click here to support.

As of this writing, we do not know the exact cause of Hamlin's cardiac arrest, specifically if the contact from Higgins played a role. Yet, ESPN's Bart Scott still went and tossed out a wild accusation on First Take that Higgins initiated the impact with an illegal hit lowering his helmet.

“Right before the tackle, he (Higgins) lowers his helmet, and he kind of throws his body into his (Hamlin’s) chest,” Scott said Tuesday. “He’s (Hamlin) standing up because he’s thinking he’s got to take Tee Higgins at an angle to make a tackle. So, he didn’t expect Tee Higgins to launch his body back into him. A lot of times you see it as a linebacker. Running back comes through the hole and he knows that contact’s coming, so he lowers his helmet and you can’t get underneath him. He’s able to get into you and your chest is exposed. So they’ve taken that out of the game, but they don’t really regulate it as much as possible. I expect the league will be a lot more vigilant when it comes to that and using that penalty.”

There had been no medical declaration that the hit caused cardiac arrest before Scott claimed Higgins "lowered his helmet," which is completely false. 

Higgins lowered his right shoulder to initiate routine contact on an NFL tackle, when humans lower their shoulders, the head naturally follows, but he did not spear Hamlin with the helmet.

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The Bengals' wide receiver had a prior relationship with Hamlin from their college days in the AAC and the whole event shook him up.

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Russ Heltman
RUSS HELTMAN

Russ Heltman is a contributor for AllBearcats and AllBengals. He is the morning host and producer for 89.3 WMKV in Cincinnati, OH.  Russ can be found on Twitter: @RussHeltman11 or you can reach him by email at Heltmandm@yahoo.com.

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