Report: Team Official Blasts NFL Exec Who Allegedly Pushed to Restart Bills-Bengals Game

An extensive new report published by ESPN directly refutes the NFL’s claim that it never seriously considered restarting the Jan. 2 game between the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals after Bills player Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest on the field.

In the days after the game was suspended, the NFL insisted that Roger Goodell supported a decision made by NFL Executive V.P. of Football Operations Troy Vincent to cancel the game for the evening after Hamlin was rushed to the hospital.

But Tuesday’s ESPN report contradicts that and claims that the real decision not to resume play was made by the two teams at Paul Brown Stadium, not the league, and that Vincent’s office was attempting to convince NFL Chief Football Administrative Officer Dawn Aponte — who was there at the stadium — to order a resumption of the game.

“According to Rule 17-1-4 of the NFL rulebook, the decision to postpone a game because of extraordinary circumstances lies with commissioner Roger Goodell,” ESPN noted. ESPN added that the day after the game, Goodell issued a memo saying he made the call after speaking to the players union and officials from the two teams.

Goodell also praised Troy Vincent for making the right decision to cancel the game.

“A standard practice would be to resume play, but when you get feedback that it may not be appropriate, that’s when Troy made the decision to suspend play,” Goodell said. “Which was the right decision, and allow everyone to go back and let’s gather ourselves and get more information, which was clear we needed to do. So, and then I made the decision to postpone shortly thereafter.”

Vincent also claimed he never once considered restarting the game.

“And I was the one … that was communicating with the commissioner,” Vincent said, according to ESPN. “We never, frankly, it never crossed our mind to talk about warming up to resume play. That’s ridiculous. That’s insensitive, and that’s not a place that we should ever be in.”

In another interview, Vincent added that any suggestion that he wanted to restart the game is “insensitive and frankly it lacked both empathy and compassion for Damar’s situation.”

Again, Vincent added, “My mic was completely open in talking to Shawn [Smith], and at that time, I’m the center resource. At no time in my discussion in that hourlong time frame did we ever even — myself — reference [or] give any directives about getting players ready to play.”

But all this does not seem to line up with what those at the stadium have said. Indeed, insiders told ESPN that Vincent was urging Aponte to restart the game even though neither team wanted to do so.

Over an hour passed after Hamlin was taken to the hospital, and the league had not made the final decision to cancel the game. And while both teams did not want to resume play, the league refused to make the call.

“The only chaos was coming … from the command center,” a top team official told ESPN.

Another team official told ESPN that the fault is all on Vincent’s shoulders.

“The league screws this s— up because Troy Vincent screws this stuff up,” the official told ESPN. “That’s the wrong person in the wrong position at the absolute wrong time. … He wants to be the hero, but he will never take accountability. That’s him to a T.”

ESPN also reported that ESPN officiating expert John Parry was being told the game would resume, as well. Parry received the instruction from “a senior NFL rules analyst inside the NFL command center.” It is assumed this “senior analyst” was Vincent.

The league, though, directly disputed the Parry claim and sent ESPN a statement reading, “at no time did [the unspecified rules analyst] say anything related to a five-minute warm-up period to John Parry … John is just plain wrong. . . . We stand by Troy Vincent’s comments and strongly refute this characterization.”

But there is certainly confusion on the point. After all, play-by-play broadcaster Joe Buck claims he was being told that the game would restart. Buck told TV viewers that the game was set to resume no less than four times in the hour after Hamlin was rushed to the hospital because that is what he claims he was being told.

ESPN Deportes’ Spanish-language play-by-play team was telling Spanish-language fans the same thing.

“The league is telling us that they’ve given five minutes to warm up again and that the match will begin,” Eduardo Varela said on the air that night.

Regardless, neither the Bengals nor the Bills — nor either’s players — wanted to resume the game. And even if they were told to restart the game, there might have been a revolt.

“We felt confusion and nonsense more than pressure,” a team official said. “They were still discussing things. In our mind there was nothing to be discussed. … If they would have said, ‘If you leave you’re forfeiting the game,’ we’re still leaving.”

Finally, 66 minutes after Damar Hamlin’s collapse, the league officially suspended the game. And days later, it was decided that the game would not be finished and was officially canceled from the schedule leaving the Bills and Bengals both short a regular season game.

The NFL may be sticking with its claim that Try Vincent consulted with Roger Goodell, and they quickly and firmly ruled that the game would not resume that fateful night. But the folks on the ground simply don’t support the league’s characterization of what went on that night.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston