Damar Hamlin on Tua Tagovailoa: I was just trying to make a routine tackle

It was a football game that looked like hundreds of others until it didn't.

Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa scrambled for a first down late in the third quarter Thursday night and then put his head down as Bills safety Damar Hamlin stepped up to make the tackle.

“I was just trying to create A routine tackleTrying to get them down the field on fourth down,” Hamlin said, via Tim Graham of TheAthletic.com.

It turns out to be a normal football game when Tagovailoa displays the fencing posture associated with concussions, and Tagovailoa's history of brain injuries makes this a scary development. The horrors that followed seemingly routine plays after going into cardiac arrest after being involved in a tackle during a game against the Bengals in the 2022 season are something Hamlin knows all too well.

Hamlin worked his way back into the field and became a starter this season, but some memories of what happened Thursday night came flooding back.

“It's trauma. It always will be,” Hamlin said. “I can't be affected by it because of the work I've done. I went through trauma therapy. I have a psychologist that I talk to. It allowed me to push my mind forward, moving my process forward. I worked so hard last year putting on pads, tackling, getting ready to play that I'm perfectly fine now and fully able to go back and play.”

Hamlin said he's praying for Tagovailoa to make a “speedy recovery” and that he'll have plenty of company on that front.