Bills' Josh Allen on Damar Hamlin: 'S*** ... We Looked in the Face of Death'

Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen reflects on the emotions he and his teammates felt when safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field of play

Six months ago, the Buffalo Bills were at the center of one of the scariest situations in NFL history.

During a Monday Night Football game against the Cincinnati Bengals on Jan. 2, Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field after making a routine tackle. Hamlin remained unconscious for several minutes, and had to be rushed to the hospital. His life hung in the balance, and in an exceedingly-rare situation, the entire NFL world stopped.

Thankfully, Hamlin has made a miraculous recovery and has even been cleared to return to football, but that doesn't take away from the sheer terror his teammates felt at the time. Quarterback Josh Allen recently opened up about the situation, describing the emotions he felt when it happened.

"You'd never suspect that, right? Like what was going on?," Allen said on the Bussin' With The Boys podcast. "S*** that we were hearing from the training staff and the paramedics that were, you know, working on him I mean, it's just like, set in after about 45 seconds standing out there like what's going on?

"Like he's OK, and then all of a sudden you hear some stuff, and it was nuts." 

After witnessing such a horrifying incident, the Bills decided they couldn't continue with the game. Allen recalls that, while the Bills initially considered pressing on, they quickly realized that they weren't in the state to do so.

"Let's go in the locker room, let's reconvene like there's guys sitting on the bench that looked in the face of death right now ... ultimately came to the decision," Allen said. "If there's one guy in this room that can't play, we don't play and obviously there's more than one guy that was like, 'No, I'm not not going out there.' Alright, then nobody's going out there."

Allen adds that the Bengals were entirely supportive in calling off the game, a decision he admired greatly.

"As I started walking over there. They were walking to us saying the same thing ... We're not playing either. Like, I thought that was a pretty, pretty respectful thing for them to do which made it a lot easier for us to."

If there was one positive to the situation, it was how the NFL community rallied around Hamlin in his hour of need. Allen praised the community for coming together, calling the response to Hamlin's incident as "pretty cool."

Hamlin is fortunately in a much better state now, and the Bills are eagerly awaiting his return to the field this season.

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You can follow Jonathan Alfano on Twitter at @JonAlfano_News

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