Veteran broadcaster Joe Buck and ESPN are reiterating that they were told the NFL planned to have players back on the field following the scary incident to Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin on Monday night.
During ESPN's "Monday Night Football" broadcast, after Hamlin was taken to the hospital after suffering from cardiac arrest, Buck said the two teams were told they had five minutes to warm-up before the game's restart. Some thought the league's sentiments, should they be true, were very questionable given the seriousness of the situation.
Hamlin ultimately had to have his heartbeat restored and was taken to a Cincinnati hospital by ambulance, where he stayed overnight in the ICU in critical condition. The game was later suspended and there is no plan to resume it.
Well, after an NFL executive denied Buck's on-air report late Monday night, the well-known broadcaster and World Wide Leader doubled down on initial reporting.
"They said they're going to give five minutes of a warm-up to these players to get ready," Buck told the New York Post's Andrew Marchand in a story published Tuesday.
Buck told Marchand the information came from ESPN's rules expert John Parry, who was in direct communication with the league. At the time, ESPN showed Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow throwing the ball as if he expected the game to continue. ESPN's Lisa Salters later shared on the network that she saw Bills wideout Stefon Diggs trying to motivate his teammates to get back in the mindset to play the game, another indication players might have been told of a continuation.
ESPN issued a statement of its own Tuesday afternoon, standing with Buck in the process.
"There was constant communication in real time between ESPN and league and game officials," the statement read, per The Athletic's Jeff Howe. "As a result of that, we reported what we were told in the moment and immediately updated fans as new information was learned. This was an unprecedented, rapidly-evolving circumstance. All night long, we refrained from speculation."
ESPN's statement contradicts what NFL executive Troy Vincent told reporters Monday night. Vincent denied the NFL was ever thinking about resuming the game, despite the fact the league did not put that notion out in real time. Vincent said he did not know how or where the report was started and referred to the notion as "ridiculous."
