NFL Team Official Eviscerates Troy Vincent For Damar Hamlin Indecision: 'Wrong Person ... Wrong Position ... Wrong Time'
We're still hearing different versions of the story about what exactly happened in the hour or so after Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field against the Cincinnati Bengals when it comes to the decision-making process to suspend the game.
During the broadcast, both ESPN and ESPN Deportes reported that players were given a five-minute warmup period before the game was set to resume. The NFL has denied the report about a five-minute warmup period with NFL Vice President of Operations Troy Vincent claiming "it never crossed our mind to talk about warming up to resume play."
Now, an anonymous high-ranking team official from either the Bills or Bengals is calling out Vincent and the NFL claiming their denial about resuming the game is bogus.
"The league did not cancel the game," the team official told ESPN. "The Bills and the Bengals canceled the game."
"The league screws this sh-t up because Troy Vincent screws this stuff up," the official said. "That's the wrong person in the wrong position at the absolute wrong time ... He wants to be the hero, but he will never take accountability. That's him to a T."
The anonymous team official did give credit to NFL chief football administrator Dawn Aponte as being the middleman between coaches and referees. The official said Aponte was receiving "crazy nonsense" from the NFL command center but held things together while communicating with coaches, referees, and Vincent.
The game was ultimately suspended 66 minutes after Hamlin collapsed on the field and was officially canceled late last week.
Vincent addressed the media after the decision was made to suspend the game and stuck to his story about there never being a directive for players to start warming up again, but the anonymous team official and ESPN are both telling a different story.