"you lose sleep" — nfl won't reschedule buffalo bills game vs cincinnati bengals after hamlin's collapse

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witnessing a traumatic event — either in person or through the tv screen — can have real impacts on the brain and behaviour.

by chris arnold

published jan 09, 2023

last updated feb 21, 2025

3 minute read

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3 minute read

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will the nfl reschedule buffalo bills versus cincinnati bengals game?

buffalo bills fans hold signs in support of buffalo bills safety damar hamlin during a game against the new england patriots. (photo by bryan m. bennett/getty images)

the nfl has announced

the buffalo bills game vs cincinnati bengals game will not be rescheduled. the game was initially postponed after damar hamlin collapsed on the field during the first quarter.

the buffalo bills safety is now awake but remains hospitalized. more than 60,000 people were at the game last monday, which was first delayed for several minutes as medical staff administered cpr on the field, before the game was postponed.

“you lose sleep,” bills quarterback josh allen said in a press conference. “you hurt for your brother. there’s a lot of shared grief. but getting positive updates eases so much of that pain.”

the game was originally postponed at 10:01 p.m., more than an hour after hamlin collapsed. the league is looking into several options for how the playoffs will proceed.

“neither coach, frankly, was talking about resuming play,” troy vincent, nfl executive vp of football operations told yahoo. “the players weren’t. medical staff, player union, union official, real-time broadcast partners — just trying to make sure we were keeping everyone abreast of what was taking place and what we were thinking prior to the decision being made, at this particular juncture.”

witnessing traumatic events — like during the buffalo bills versus cincinnati bengals game — can impact the brain and behaviour

individuals will have different responses to observing, learning about, or directly experiencing a traumatic event, according to the royal college of psychiatrists. what is considered ‘traumatic’ will also vary from person to person, and each person may have a different response to the same event.

stress, confusion, anxiety, confusion, and agitation can all be initial reactions to trauma. some witnesses may not immediately have a reaction to the event, while others may later suffer flashbacks of the event, or can have no recollection of the incident.

a study published in the national library of medicine suggests that traumatic stress is associated with an increase in cortisol, a stress hormone, and norepinephrine, which is partially responsible for the fight-or-flight response.

cortisol helps to regulate stress in the body, and can impact metabolism, suppress inflammation, and regulate both blood pressure and blood sugar, according to the cleveland clinic. norepinephrine can cause pupils to dilate, an increase in heart rate, and faster breathing in order to get the person having the reaction ready to either fight or run.

in some cases, traumatic and stressful events can cause permanent changes in the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex, areas of the brain responsible for analyzing potential threats, memory and regulating a response to our emotions, respectively.

each of these three areas of the brain are impacted when a person suffers from post traumatic stress disorder. the amygdala becomes hyper-responsive, the hippocampus shows diminished functional integrity, and the the medial prefrontal cortex may becomes less responsive, according to a study published in 2006.

a traumatic response to images on the screens

traumatic events also aren’t limited to things seen in person. news coverage of attacks and deaths can have similar impacts for viewers.

watching something traumatic on tv, especially a large international event such as 9/11 or the boston marathon bombing, can trigger a stress response in the brain similar to the type of response that would be expected if you had seen it first hand. a study from the university of california, irvine, found that about 4.5 per cent of people (out of 4,600) experienced high acute stress after the boston marathon bombing in 2013. the more coverage respondents had watched of the event, and a history of mental health conditions, increased the likelihood of experiencing stress during this period.

sporting events, among the most watched live events in the world, are no exception from this phenomena.

during the 2021 uefa euro cup soccer tournament, denmark’s christian eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest on the field. his teammates quickly surrounded him and blocked cameras for his privacy.

the bbc received 6,417 complaints about the broadcast showing images of eriksen on the ground, though the company wrote that it had no control over what images were shown, as the cameras were operated by uefa.

“we apologize to anyone who was upset by the images broadcast,” bbc wrote. “in stadium coverage is controlled by uefa as the host broadcaster, and as soon as the match was suspended, we took our coverage off air as quickly as possible.”

chris arnold is a toronto-based writer.

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