I’m going to start this one by extending thoughts to Damar Hamlin. I won’t pretend like I knew him, or even heard his name other than the off chance I heard him make a tackle during a game, but nobody should go through that kind of an injury during a game of football. I hope he is doing better and that he has a speedy recovery. That kind of injury is scary and thankfully, is rare in the NFL.
Anyway, this blog is less about the injury and more about how one person reacted to it. If you don’t know, Damar Hamlin took a shoulder to the chest from Bengals receiver Tee Higgins. He immediately stood up after making the tackle, then collapsed to the ground. It was bad, and the medical staff’s reaction to it showed that. According to the Buffalo Bills organization, “a cardiac arrest on the field and is now in serious condition at a CIncinnati hospital.
After this injury and a discussion amongst the players, coaches and officials, the game was ultimately postponed. Which is understandable.
After the game was postponed, I decided to make it an early night and head to bed.
I woke up early and decided to scroll through social media before I started my day. All of a sudden, I came across this screenshot of local journalist and blogger Turtleboy tweeting about the injury. Turtlenboy had this to say, “Do you think Hamlin wants his team to sacrifice the bye and home field? Will his health improve if they don’t play the game at all? You can’t move this to Wednesday or Thursday. They play again on Sunday. Grow up and face the actual reality here instead of virtue signaling.”
Ok, there’s a lot to unpack here. First off, I have to say he is probably right about not being able to make up the game. It is the last week of the year and the playoffs begin next week. There really isn’t much time to do this. That’s just the truth. Well, as always, an easy solution is just to call the game a tie and move on. I’m sure both teams would be ok with that.
But logistics and win totals aren’t the story here. What Turtleboy is forgetting here is that somebody almost died. In fact, if he went into cardiac arrest on the field, he was actually not living for a few moments. As someone who played football, that is incredibly jarring.
Now for those who don’t know, Turtleboy is an excellent journalist. As a matter of fact, he is probably the best in the area. He has exposed so many stories and corruption that nobody else in the media has the balls to touch. Unfortunately, his tactics and abrasive attitude make him hard to root for. He gives off this very defensive, tough guy attitude that is unwarranted in a lot of situations. An example of this was a few years back when I made a joke on Twitter that an account named “Turtleboy Quotes” was actually just him tweeting his own quotes. It was quite humorous to me, but then I started receiving DMs from the quotes account with pictures of stuff trying to “prove” to me they were two different people. Turtleboy himself responded by calling me an idiot and such. Whatever, it was a joke.
Anyway, his aggressive style and defensiveness was off putting enough for me to just not follow him anymore. I respect his journalism, but I can read the stories I want to and forget about his other nonsense.
But his tweet last night was just dumb. I mean come on guy. If the players wanted to stop playing because one of their teammates almost died. I think that’s fair.
Obviously, he got some feedback on this tweet. A lot of people were calling him callous and harsh. He continuously responded defending himself in his typical defensive manner, and kept calling people “virtue signalers” for caring. Well TB, you are the one “virtue signaling.” You’re using your tough guy attitude to prove that you’re tougher or stronger than the rest of us, for wanting the game to continue. Is it such a bad thing for guys playing a game to be concerned about a teammate of theirs that nearly expired from playing that same game not to want to continue? How bad of a look would it be if they continued playing and Hamlin ended up passing away? Or if someone else got severely injured?
Now I get that football is a dangerous game. When these guys sign up to play it, they know it has some inherent risk of serious injury. Usually that means blown out knees, spinal injuries or concussions. Typically people don’t almost die on the field.
Turtleboy then took it a step further and compared this injury to a Weymouth police officer being killed in the line of duty. He said, “I don’t think the Weymouth police wanted to work the day Michael Chesna was murdered, but they did anyway because it’s a dangerous job they signed up for.” That is like comparing apples to elephants TB. Police officers and professional football players are not even close to comparable. One is a game, and the other is people bravely signing up to protect the public. You said it yourself, police officers sign up for the job knowing they may die. Football players are at risk for death, but it very rarely occurs on the field.
Just for some info, when a public servant like a police officer or firefighter dies on duty, they often reach out to surrounding departments for coverage. For example, when the Worcester 6 died in a fire, my father, who was a firefighter in northeast Massachusetts drove out there to cover the city. So I’m sure the Weymouth police could’ve had coverage for those grieving the loss of their fellow officer.
Anyway, Turtleboy’s tough guy routine is falling apart. Even some of more loyal followers are telling him that was a terrible take. In response, he insulted some of them saying he “hated” them anyway. An odd response if you asked me.
I’ll end with some advice for Turtleboy. Stick to your great journalism. Trying to be a tough guy on Twitter is getting old. For a guy who claims to be this macho conservative, you do complain a lot about being attacked by left-wingers and mainstream media.
Now I’m sure he’ll attack me because of this. Probably mock my vision disability. That’s fine. But it is just adding to my argument. So Turtleboy, get defensive and act like a tough guy. Whatever makes you feel big or whatever. You know I’m right on this one.