Damar Hamlin play reminded Bill Belichick of infamous Reggie Brown injury

Though he doesn’t watch a lot of “Monday Night Football,” Bill Belichick still found himself flipping to the Bills-Bengals game. Mostly, he said, it was because the Patriots would face the Bills in Week 18 on a short week.

But when Buffalo safety Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest and collapsed on the field, the ensuing sequence of events reminded Belichick of another horrifying injury he experienced. In 1997, while Belichick was a coach with the Jets under Bill Parcells, former Lions linebacker Reggie Brown suffered a serious spinal cord injury that ended his career.

He said the play where Brown was injured seemed like a “normal play,” with former Jets running back Adrian Murrell rushing the ball and being tackled. But when everyone returned to the huddle and Brown didn’t move, Belichick said, it turned into a “very chilling game” that he still remembers to this day.

“Life’s bigger than this game,” Belichick said. “[Monday] is one of these humbling moments for all of us that stands out.” 

Brown needed CPR before being put onto a board, into an ambulance and driven off the field, Belichick recalled. It was “quite a lengthy process” that resembled the one from Monday.

“Not that I have all the answers, because I certainly don’t, but I was there and experienced that, and I think have some sense of what the players and teams, coaches, went through Monday night,” Belichick said. “Like I said, it’s something that you just never forget.”

Belichick began his press conference Thursday with an eight-minute opening statement about Hamlin and what the Bills, the Bengals and the entire NFL community have endured the last four days. The 70-year-old Belichick reached out to other coaches in the NFL and in other leagues in addition to addressing his players, he said.

Belichick said that the morning’s update — about Hamlin gradually waking from his medically induced sedation at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center — was “great news” and “encouraging for all of us.” Mac Jones, Belichick’s quarterback, said the first question Hamlin later wrote for doctors, which asked who won the game between the Bengals and Bills, was “pretty wild.” Doctors proceeded to tell Hamlin that he won the “game of life.”

“I think every update that we get in the locker room, everyone’s super excited to hear that each time, he’s doing better,” Jones said in his press conference Thursday. “We’re all super excited. … You can tell that he’s a competitor, right? That’s the first thing he’s asking and all that. I think that’s who we are as people.

The positive developments continued into Friday, as the breathing tube was removed and Hamlin communicated with his Bills teammates over Zoom during a team meeting.

The Patriots will travel to Buffalo and face the Bills on Sunday with a potential playoff berth on the line.