The latest update on Damar Hamlin, as this is written, is that he has is awake and has been holding hands with family. He has not yet spoken (the breathing tube’s still in), but he’s been able to communicate, asking if the Bills went on to win the game. Along with so many others, we continue to hope and pray for him and for his family.
Now.
A predictable crew trotted out their “conversation starters” the last two days, in the wake of Damar Hamlin’s on-field cardiac arrest in Cincinnati. President Biden was asked if the NFL was becoming too dangerous (he said no). The New York Times ran a piece titled, “We’re All Complicit in the N.F.L.’s Violent Spectacle.” The Atlantic doubled up, following “The Dark Pageant of the NFL” with “Are Sports Worth the Risks?”
Questions regarding the safety of football are fair. I don’t want to discount the legitimacy of that conversation. I don’t even disagree with the stance that football is dangerous—if I’m blessed with kids, I don’t particularly want them to grow up playing tackle football. But the headlines are off-base here. They’re widely off-base. For a few reasons.
First, Damar Hamlin’s specific incident appears to have been a freak event. This was not a head injury. This was not a spinal injury. This was a cardiac arrest, speculated to have been caused by a blow to the chest at precisely the wrong time. If that’s what happened, it was “commotio cordis,” the same thing that caused Chris Pronger’s cardiac arrest in the midst of an NHL game 25 years ago. The probability of a blow happening in the wrong place and the wrong time with sufficient force to cause cardiac arrest is miniscule, even in football. This is why we don’t see it very often. The head-and-neck-injury conversation surrounding football is valid. It’s nuanced, but it’s valid. Contrarily, what happened to Hamlin—commotio cordis or not—is extremely rare. I know it’s a good trick in media to (intentionally or otherwise) misrepresent risk, but…come on. This is using a dramatic event (and a person’s life) to push a click-driving narrative. If you want to further that conversation, find a compelling new angle on concussions and neck injuries. There’s plenty there.
Second, this incident was not necessarily football-specific. The heart is, by nature, stressed during athletic events. Danish soccer player Christian Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest on the field of play in a major international game the summer before last. There was the Pronger incident in the NHL. Every year, for decades, somewhere around ten college athletes (out of nearly two hundred thousand) have suffered a sudden cardiovascular-related death. It’s tragic, but again, it’s far from the biggest risk (I’m hoping that was the answer to the second piece from The Atlantic), and it’s present across sports. If it does turn out it was commotio cordis, yes, I suppose football has more sharp contact than other sports, but then we’re back to the rarity point from before. These anti-football takes are not freshly conceived in the wake of Damar Hamlin’s cardiac arrest. They’re justified head-injury takes being unjustifiably applied to the most dramatic in-game health emergency a major American professional sports league has seen in years.
Third, and this gets more subjective, the NFL handled this extremely well. The league had medical teams available and ready—medical teams who currently appear to have saved Hamlin’s life, and hopefully his quality of life as well. The league did not try to make the players continue to play. The league did not try to reschedule the game in the immediate wake of the incident. Both teams’ head coaches, as we wrote yesterday, demonstrated admirable and expected decency, decency which has been echoed all around the industry as the days have gone on. All stakeholders—players, coaches, league officials, ESPN—handled a legitimately shocking situation with grace, and have continued to do so for a few days now. This is a loud testament to the people involved, to the medical profession, to humanity, etc.
The NFL deserves to be habitually under fire these days. The NFL downplayed the risks of concussions, let Dan Snyder own a team for way too long, uses a rule that tokenizes Black coaching candidates, on and on and on. But the Damar Hamlin situation, tragic and horrifying as it is, has been a situation that’s shown the best of the people involved in the production that is the NFL, from Roger Goodell to Joe Buck. The question, in the wake of the incident, is not whether football is too dangerous. The question is why the NFL doesn’t handle other matters with the grace and decency they’ve shown here. That’s your op-ed angle.
It would be wonderful if this event led to advancements in preventing or reacting to cardiac arrest in sport. It is good that our awareness of a real (if small) sporting risk is renewed. But using this as some referendum on football is a little bit sick and a lot off-base. It’s also unnecessary. If you want to fight football, you’ve got plenty of ammunition. You don’t need to use Damar Hamlin (who used football to overcome a childhood situation that often turns tragic, which is rare but way more common than on-field cardiac arrest) as your prop.
What’s Up With UConn?
If UConn hadn’t opened the season 14-0, we wouldn’t be too concerned with them dropping two straight road games by double digits against likely NCAA Tournament teams. We wouldn’t notice that. The standards would be different.
Instead, UConn came out of the gate and slowly established themselves as a viable NCAA Tournament contender, taking the top rating on KenPom before Christmas and not suffering a close game until…well, they still haven’t, really, I guess. They earned some expectations. They’ve now failed to meet them. Let’s figure out what it means.
UConn has underperformed these last two games. They’re understandable losses, but that doesn’t mean UConn played like the best team in the country. They’ve fallen to fourth now on KenPom. They would continue to fall if they continued to hit these exact results (KenPom has them favored on the road against Marquette next week, still, even with Marquette ranked ahead of both Xavier and Providence). Simply put, UConn needs to play better again.
There’s no big reason to think UConn won’t play better again, though. These haven’t been massive offensive absences or a wholly concerning referendum on UConn’s defense. They’ve shown vulnerabilities, but we do not have a team this year that lacks those. I’d still take UConn’s offense over Houston’s, both on an average night and at its worst. I’d still take UConn’s defense to be good enough to win in March. The number of free throws they’re yielding is concerning, but the defense is still good. Worse in that aspect that Kansas’s and UCLA’s, but better overall.
So, it remains UCLA, Kansas, and UConn at the top for us, not in terms of who’s the best team (we’ll trust KenPom on that and say it’s Houston or Tennessee) but in terms of who’s likeliest to get through those six games in March and April without a loss.
Bruce Pearl Found His Ceiling
Bruce Pearl’s 2019 team was his best, at Auburn or elsewhere. That was the team which made the Final Four and came one horrible play and some Virginia magic away from upsetting the best team in the country. Last year’s got more attention, but it was a circumstantially good team, one that did a lot against an advantageous conference schedule and was exposed when the gauntlet got tough.
This year’s was supposed to be up there with those of the last two seasons, but as of today, the best win Auburn’s notched came by a score of 43-42, against Northwestern, in Mexico. Last night, they went over to Athens and got trounced by Georgia, who’s unlikely to make the NIT.
I’d love to see a dig into whether NIL is hurting guys like Pearl, but even before NIL, Pearl had a ceiling, and it was below the level of legitimate, consistent national contender.
Iowa State Got Its Steal
It was a wild game, but Iowa State held the line in Norman, and after two games they sit at the top of the Big 12. Caleb Grill’s mohawk stands tall.
It’s not the worst description to say that the Big 12 right now is Kansas on one level and everyone else in a wrestling match. The entire league is in KenPom’s top 40. The entire league is poised to make the NCAA Tournament so long as no one finishes too close to .500 overall. Even with all that, though, Iowa State has put itself in good position. They’re an underdog—a big one—and expectations shouldn’t be for them to win the league. But finishing in the top half? That’s on the table.
Goodbye, Duke (For Now)
There isn’t that big a reason to be overly concerned with Duke as a program. Blowout road losses happen, and while the team isn’t that good this year, they also aren’t terrible or anything. Better than they were two years ago. Much better than they were two years ago. They retain most of their brand power, even with a new coach. Duke will be back in the national scene.
Still, we have categories here, and it’s important to keep them updated, so here we go:
NCAA Tournament Contenders (among the best teams, well-rounded, no significant questions)
- UCLA, who has the fewest questions and is now seen as probably better than UConn.
- UConn, who remains unproven (and newly proven beatable) but is also quite good.
- Kansas, who had that dud against Tennessee but has otherwise done all we’ve asked.
The Questioned (among the best teams, at least one significant flaw)
- Houston, whose offense may be too prone to disaster.
- Tennessee, whose offense is not all that good.
- Arizona, whose defense is not all that good.
- Purdue, whose defense is not all that good.
Good, Not Great (Final Four hopefuls, not real national championship threats)
- Alabama
- Arkansas
- Texas (demoted from The Questioned)
- Ohio State
- Gonzaga (demoted from The Questioned)
- Virginia
- Kentucky (but they need to shape up)
We’ve kicked out Baylor and Duke. Kentucky, as stated, needs to shape up. Texas and Gonzaga have fallen into familiar Texas territory.
**
Viewing schedule, second screen rotation in italics:
College Basketball (sampler platter)
- 6:30 PM EST: Maryland @ Rutgers (BTN)
- 7:00 PM EST: Purdue @ Ohio State (FS1)
- 7:00 PM EST: UAB @ FAU (ESPN+)
- 9:00 PM EST: Indiana @ Iowa (FS1)
- 9:30 PM EST: USC @ UCLA (ESPN)
- 11:00 PM EST: Gonzaga @ San Francisco (ESPN2)
NBA (best game)
- 7:30 PM EST: Boston @ Dallas (TNT)
NHL (best game)
- 7:00 PM EST: Seattle @ Toronto (ESPN+)
Premier League
- 3:00 PM EST: Manchester City @ Chelsea (Peacock)
