Damar Hamlin on Tua Tagovailoa: I was just trying to make a routine tackle

It was a football play that looked like hundreds of others until it didn’t.

Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa scrambled for a first down late in the third quarter on Thursday night and then lowered his head as Bills safety Damar Hamlin moved in to make the tackle.

“I was just trying to make a routine tackle, trying to get them off the field on fourth down,” Hamlin said, via Tim Graham of TheAthletic.com.

It ceased being a normal football play when Tagovailoa displayed the fencing posture associated with concussions and Tagovailoa’s history of brain injuries made that a scary development. Scary developments after seemingly routine plays are something Hamlin knows all too well after going into cardiac arrest after being involved in a tackle during a game against the Bengals during the 2022 season.

Hamlin worked his way back onto the field and became a starter this season, but what happened Thursday night brought some of those memories flooding back.

“It’s trauma. It will always be there,” Hamlin said. “I’m able to not be affected by it because of the work that I’ve done. I went through trauma therapy. I have a psychologist I talk to. It’s allowed me to push my mind forward, push my process forward. I did the hard stuff last year as far as putting the pads on, tackling, getting game-ready to know that I’m now perfectly fine and perfectly able to go back and play.”

Hamlin said he’s praying for Tagovailoa to make a “speedy recovery” and he’ll have plenty of company on that front.