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

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

Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa rushed for a first down late in the third quarter Thursday night, then ducked his head as Bills safety Damar Hamlin approached to make the tackle.

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

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

Hamlin managed to get back on the field and become a starter this season, but what happened Thursday night brought back some of those memories.

“It’s trauma. It’s always going to be there,” Hamlin said. “I’m able to not be affected by it because of the work I’ve done. I’ve been in therapy for the trauma. I talk to a psychologist. It’s allowed me to move my mind forward, move my process forward. I did the hard things last year, like putting on the pads, tackling, getting ready for the game, to know that I’m perfectly fine now and perfectly capable of going back to play.”

Hamlin said he was praying Tagovailoa would recover “quickly” and that he would have plenty of company in that regard.