Josh Allen recalls Bills looking in the 'face of death' during scary Damar Hamlin collapse - "It was nuts"

Josh Allen opened up about the time Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field last season while playing for the Buffalo Bills against the Cincinnati Bengals.

He recollected that for the initial few moments, the shock was tough for the players to absorb. As they saw the paramedics come in, the Buffalo players were left wondering what had happened to their teammate.

He said:

"You'd never suspect that, right? Like what was going on? Shit that we were hearing from the training staff and the paramedics that were, you know, working on him I mean, it's just like, set in after about 45 seconds standing out there like what's going on?

"Like he's okay and then all of a sudden you hear some stuff and it was nuts."

But the gravity of the situation soon became clear that Damar Hamlin had suffered cardiac arrest. Allen took the time to thank the training staff, the community of Buffalo and the wider NFL community for coming together to root for Hamlin.

He said:

"I will say this but an amazing effort by our training staff, amazing effort by him for fighting through it.

"And I think that, one, the community of Buffalo was fantastic, but really the NFL community coming together... And sharing a moment at least for a little bit where everybody was united, you know, cheering for one purpose and that was the safety of Damar. So, I think that was pretty cool."

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Josh Allen credits the Cincinnati Bengals after Damar Hamlin incident

Josh Allen said that after Damar Hamlin's collapse, they were initially thinking of going back but then they decided as a team that if anyone felt uncomfortable, no one would go out.

"We didn't really have a choice right away. It was kind of like alright warm up you guys are gonna in... we're just like, hold up.

"Let's go in the locker room, let's reconvene like there's guys sitting on the bench that looked in the face of death right now... ultimately came to the decision. If there's one guy in this room that can't play, we don't play and obviously there's more than one guy that was like, 'no, I'm not not going out there'. Alright, then nobody's going out there."

Josh Allen also credited the Bengals for not forcing the Bills to come out on the field after having experienced the kind of mental trauma they did.

Allen said:

"I talked to my coach and I was like, 'We're not playing'. I'm gonna go talk to the Bengals and just tell them like we can't do it.

"As I started walking over there. They were walking to us saying the same thing... We're not playing either. Like, I thought that was a pretty, pretty respectful thing for them to do which made it a lot easier for us to."

However, the fact that the game was called off by the NFL instead of being rescheduled did rub a lot of Bengals fans the wrong way, but the Buffalo Bills quarterback did not dwell on that.

All that matters, in the end, is that Damar Hamlin withstood and recovered, and is doing better now.