NFL team official puts blame on league exec over Bills-Bengals warm up report

One of many unanswered questions which have swirled across the canceled Buffalo Payments and Cincinnati Bengals recreation from Week 17 of the NFL common season is whether or not gamers had been instructed they might have 5 minutes to heat up once more after Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest on the sphere.

ESPN’s Joe Buck stated on the printed gamers would have the allotted time to heat up once more earlier than Payments coach Sean McDermott and Bengals coach Zac Taylor introduced their gamers again to the locker room. NFL Vice President of Soccer Operations Troy Vincent since denied gamers got 5 minutes to heat up and get again on the sphere after the medical emergency.

An nameless high-ranking crew official from one of many groups on the recreation gave credit score to NFL chief soccer administrator Daybreak Aponte in an interview with ESPN for being the intermediary in between the coaches and referees at Paycor Stadium and those that had been making selections on the league’s command heart in New York Metropolis. The official stated there was no means the groups had been going to play once more and described the hassle to get the sport suspended for good that evening an effort from the bottom up.

“The league didn’t cancel the sport,” the crew official instructed ESPN. “The Payments and the Bengals canceled the sport.”

The crew official added that after the ambulance left the sphere with Hamlin in it, “it was crystal clear from everybody’s perspective” that the sport couldn’t go on.

“The one chaos was coming… from the command heart,” the official stated.

Vincent was described because the senior-most govt within the commander heart on the time. He vehemently denied making the decision for gamers to heat up once more.

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A poster is connected to a fence outdoors of College of Cincinnati Medical Heart, Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2023, in Cincinnati. Buffalo Payments’ Damar Hamlin was taken to the hospital after collapsing on the sphere throughout an NFL soccer recreation in opposition to the Cincinnati Bengals on Monday evening.
(AP Picture/Darron Cummings)

“The league screws this s— up as a result of Troy Vincent screws these items up,” the official stated. “That is the fallacious individual within the fallacious place on the absolute fallacious time … He desires to be the hero, however he won’t ever take accountability. That is him to a T.”

As the sport was left in limbo and the gamers remained of their locker rooms, ESPN reported that a number of concepts had been floated from New York together with an concept that the Payments would keep in Cincinnati in a single day. The crew official stated in his crew’s thoughts, “there was nothing to be mentioned.”

Taylor stated there was “no push” for something to occur, nor was there a directive to get the crew warming up once more.

The league suspended the sport after 66 minutes. Vincent addressed the media afterward saying there was no directive to get the gamers warming up once more whereas ESPN backed up their reporting the subsequent day.

Damar Hamlin, #3 of the Buffalo Payments, stands close to the sidelines throughout introductions previous to an NFL soccer recreation in opposition to the Cincinnati Bengals at Paycor Stadium on Jan. 2, 2023 in Cincinnati.
(Kevin Sabitus/Getty Photos)

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy instructed reporters final week that an NFL guidelines analyst was adamant they didn’t inform anybody a few 5-minute warmup to ESPN’s John Parry, who was within the sales space and relayed the data to Buck, Troy Aikman and viewers at dwelling.

“We stand by Troy Vincent’s feedback and strongly refute this characterization,” McCarthy stated.

The Payments and Bengals recreation was later canceled and dominated a no-contest.