Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin will always be known for the play in January of 2023 when he was struck in the chest while making a tackle and went into cardiac arrest on the field. He wants people to know him for his play on the field, too, and he was named the opening day starter for the Bills for the first time in his career. The team announced the news on Wednesday before their first official practice of the week.
“What else can’t this young man do?” coach Sean McDermott asked rhetorically when making the announcement.
It’s not the first start of Hamlin’s career, but it is the most meaningful. Since being revived on the field with an AED following CPR, Hamlin only played in five games for the Bills during the 2023 season, starting none. He was a healthy scratch as a depth safety and only played in games where starters Micah Hyde or Jordan Poyer were banged up. He played a total of just 17 snaps all season, and ultimately that wasn’t enough of a comeback for Associated Press voters, who gave the Comeback Player of the Year award to Joe Flacco instead.
Hyde is unsigned as he enters a de facto retirement and Poyer was cut this offseason, so the team was looking for new players at the top of the depth chart. Hamlin has the most starts at safety in Buffalo of any player on the roster. Taylor Rapp spent 2023 with the Bills, too, and he’s in line to start at the strong safety spot.
Hamlin’s starting spot is still tenuous, though. Buffalo drafted Cole Bishop in the second round and signed free agent Mike Edwards, but both have dealt with offseason injuries. When they are fully healthy and up to speed, there’s a chance — and probably even a likelihood — that he is once again relegated to special teams duties and a reserve role.
When he was injured, the first concern was for his life, then his quality of life, then finally his football career and Hamlin has met each of those stages head on. He was out of the hospital in a few days, attended a Bills’ playoff game ina suite, and was back on the field for spring practices in Buffalo. His spot on the team wasn’t guaranteed, though, but he earned it. That impressed McDermott and the rest of NFL observers.
“It’s one thing to come back off of an ACL or a broken bone. It’s another thing to come back off of what he came back off of,” said McDermott. “Let alone just to decide to play football, contact football in full pads at the NFL level. I don’t think I need to say anything more. It’s incredible.”
Hamlin’s last start came in 2022, when he started 13 games in place of Poyer and Hyde before his injury in the penultimate week of the regular season.
In the wake of his injury, Hamlin’s foundation raised more than $9 million for heart-related initiatives around the country.
The Bills take on the Arizona Cardinals in Week 1 at 1:00 pm Eastern on CBS.
