The NFL denied a 'five-minute warmup' before a possible Bengals-Bills restart, but ESPN is standing by its reporting

After Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field on Monday night the Bills-Bengals game was rightfully suspended.

There’s no way anyone could’ve possibly thought about playing football again once that happened. Everyone’s concerns should’ve gone directly to Hamlin’s health moving forward.

But, according to ESPN’s reporting, that wasn’t exactly the case.

During the Monday Night Football broadcast, Joe Buck stated that the league was going to give players a 5-minute warmup period before they returned to the field and continued play. “That’s the word we get from the league” was the phrase he used. That’s totally ridiculous and there’s no way it could’ve ever happened. But, at the same time, it does seem it was considered.

The NFL says that directive didn’t come from the league, though. Troy Vincent, the league’s Executive Vice President, said the NFL announced no such thing. He called it “insensitive” and “ridiculous.”

NFL EVP Troy Vincent says there was never talk of a 5-minute warmup period, or any other timeframe other than making sure both teams had proper time in the locker room.

"It never crossed our mind to talk about warming up to resume play. That’s ridiculous. That’s insensitive."

— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) January 3, 2023

But, yet, ESPN is sticking to its reporting on the issue, according to a statement released to the New York Post’s Andrew Marchand.

ESPN statement on 5-minutes to warm-up report, disputes NFL EVP Troy Vincent's claim. pic.twitter.com/YJPIyxloPm

— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) January 3, 2023

“There was constant communication in real time between ESPN and league and game officials. As a result of that, we reported what we were told in the moment and immediately updated fans as new information was learned. This was an unprecedented, rapidly-evolving circumstance. All night long, we refrained from speculation. “

ESPN is pretty clearly pointing to the league as its source on this one. We don’t really have reason not to trust the reporting here — ESPN has nailed the coverage every step of the way so far.

But there’s very clearly some sort of discrepancy here when it comes to the NFL. It seems the league considered this, one way or another. And either it’s trying to back away from it after the fact or there was some sort of miscommunication on the end of league officials.

Either way, we need to be thankful this didn’t actually happen. That wouldn’t be a good look for anyone.