BUFFALO, N.Y. — Bills safety Damar Hamlin was rushed to the hospital after experiencing a medical emergency during Monday night's Bills-Bengals game in Cincinnati. The game was temporarily suspended in the first quarter and was later on declared to be postponed.
ESPN announcer Joe Buck mentioned several times after Hamlin was taken by ambulance off the field that the players would have five minutes to warm-up before resuming the game. Buck said that the NFL was telling him this.
NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent responded to questions last night on a late-night media call about the five minute warm-up. He said that there was never a conversation about warming up to resume play at all. He also called it "insensitive" and "ridiculous."
Although he has said that Damar Hamlin's health and condition should remain the focus, NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, is still responsible to make the decision regarding the game's completion.
According to the NFL policy manual, technically, the game would have to resume within two days of when it was originally scheduled. Therefore, if this were to be held true, the game would have to be played by Wednesday.
However, the NFL released a statement around 1 P.M. Tuesday that the Bills-Bengals game will not be resumed this week.
The statement also mentioned that there will not be any changes regarding the already scheduled week 18 games this weekend. Therefore, the Bills-Patriots game scheduled for Sunday at 1 P.M. in Orchard Park will be the next game in Buffalo's schedule.
There is still very little flexibility for when this game could resume. There are questions regarding the possibility of creating a 19th week of the regular season when the wild card games would normally occur. That may be the only thing that the league can do if they want to resume the game and keep somewhat of regularity throughout the rest of the NFL.
Despite being unsure exactly what will happen with this game moving forward, it is official that the game will not resume this week and the decision will be made at a later time.