Troy Vincent doesn’t rule out postponement of Patriots-Bills game

[Woodman]

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2023/01/04/troy-vincent-doesnt-rule-out-postponement-of-patriots-bills-game/

The NFL still hasn’t decided whether, or when, the Week 17 game between the Bills and Bengals will resume. There’s another dilemma potentially looming for the league.

During a Wednesday afternoon conference call regarding the Damar Hamlin situation, NFL executive V.P. of football operations Troy Vincent didn’t rule out the possibility of postponing the Week 18 game between the Patriots and the Bills, if Bills players and coaches aren’t ready to proceed.

[Woodman]

Re: Troy Vincent doesn’t rule out postponement of Patriots-Bills game

more from the article:

“We have not had that discussion,” Vincent said regarding the possibility of postponing the Buffalo game. “It’s really important that we just keep the pulse of the coach and the players, and don’t get in front of that. And we’ll allow Sean [McDermott] and his team and his staff and his players, which are the most important thing here, to guide this, if we have to make that decision collectively with the club.”


On one hand, it would be very hard to envision the Bills not playing on Week 18, when they quite possibly will never finish their Week 17 game. On the other hand, it’s impossible to expect the Bills players and coaches to proceed, if they aren’t ready to play.


Really, who would expect them to? They experienced a trauma that may not heal to the point at which they can properly gather themselves and play football again only six days later. If they can process their feelings and properly and safely perform, that’s great. If they can’t, that’s a decision that someone will have to make at the appropriate time.

[Cali512]

Re: Troy Vincent doesn’t rule out postponement of Patriots-Bills game

They need to suspend the season for a week. Im hearing across the league that teams havent even had true team meetings yet because they are so focussed on the mentality of the team. The players just watched another player die on the field and get brought back to life. This impacts the players more directly, than even 9/11 (read exactly what i just said, DIRECTLY)

Doug Peterson was on good morning football and literally said that they havent even thought much of the game and their primary focus is making sure the team is emotionally okay. Most of the coaches are repeating this and arent taking any questions regarding the games sunday claiming "its the least of their concern"


Even if Hamlin progresses during the week, this week is already off to such a slow start for the teams that its almost unsafe to let them play this week. Keep in mind, this isnt just a bills thing. Theres about 5-10 players and coaches on every single team that has a relationship with hamlin. Coaches who coached him in college, DBs who workout with him during the offseason, players who played with him in college/nfl


We look at the nfl as this big giant sport with thousands of people. An average nfl team consists of around 80-90 people with coaches/players included. This is less than 3000 people in the nfl taking the field on gameday. To put this in perspective, the average amount of students enrolled in college each year is 5000-15000. Not to mention teachers and such. Imagine how close you were to people in your college, especially in the small colleges that were around 5000 people. Now cut that essentially in half.

People get lost in the numbers and rivalries, but these players are very close. The nfl has to take action right now. If hamlin takes a bad turn then they will have a real **** show later this week and have to figure things out. Not only are you giving the players an extra week to cope, your also giving hamlin an extra week to get better, which will help the players cope. Even if god forbid something drastic happens, 2 weeks is much better than 5 days to emotionally process this situation