NFL Players Return to the Field After Bills’ Damar Hamlin’s Collapse

With tickets already bought and hotel rooms reserved, they kept their plans. So did the Raiders fans in their face paint and spiked shoulder fans.

“It’s Raiders, and it’s Chiefs,” Kansas City Coach Andy Reid said on Wednesday. “It doesn’t get any better than that, so we’re looking forward to going out there and playing them.”

And indeed the game unfolded as if nothing had changed, perhaps even as if nothing had happened at all. The Raiders house band, the David Perrico Pop Strings Orchestra, played songs by Santana and Guns N’ Roses, and led fans in “Defense!” chants. Las Vegas fans who were shown on the video board went crazy during their five seconds of fame. Kansas City fans, who might have outnumbered fans from the home team, tried to turn the stadium into Arrowhead Stadium West.

It was, with apologies for the slight twist on the old saw, any given Saturday.

There were scattered tributes to Hamlin among fans on Saturday. A few wore Bills jerseys, though there were just as many in gear representing the Cowboys, the Eagles, the Seahawks and other teams.

Frank Nostro, 54, who attended the game wearing a Josh Allen No. 17 Bills jersey, said he was watching as Hamlin got hit Monday night. “I thought it was just a regular hit — you see a lot of guys go down with a concussion or something like that,” he said. “But you see the replay and the panic in some of the coaches and the staff out there, and you realize it was something really bad.”

Nostro, who grew up in Buffalo and moved to Las Vegas 30 years ago, said he was wearing an Allen jersey for a much simpler reason, however. “I’m a Bills fan, I’ll always be a Bills fan, but if the Raiders win today, that helps Buffalo,” he said.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/sports/football/hamlin-nfl-games-saturday-sunday.html