Roger Goodell: Long delay before suspending Bills-Bengals was due to players "discussing it with their teams"

BOSTON -- When Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field after suffering from cardiac arrest in the middle of Monday night's Bills-Bengals game, the on-field response from medical personnel was executed to perfection -- a response which played a significant role in reviving Hamlin and creating what appears to be a best-case scenario with his health and recovery.

The off-field response from the NFL, though, became a point of controversy throughout the week, as executive VP of football operations Troy Vincent strongly denied that the league told both teams that they'd have five minutes to warm up and get ready to continue playing. Yet it wasn't until more than an hour had passed from the injury that the NFL announced the game had been postponed.

That decision was ultimately made by commissioner Roger Goodell, who said Sunday on 98.5 The Sports Hub's pregame show that the delay was due to players discussing the situation among themselves, with the league awaiting to hear from them.

"[The decision to suspend play] comes with a lot of discussion. The coaches, the players, they're hearing from their players. You want to get all of that information," Goodell told Marc Bertrand and Chris Gasper. "A standard practice would be to resume play, but when you get feedback that it may not be appropriate, that's when Troy made the decision to suspend play -- which was the right decision -- and allow everyone to go back and let's gather ourselves and get more information, which was clear we needed to do. And then I made the decision to postpone shortly thereafter."

Goodell continued: "But in many times we were prepared to make that decision. The players wanted to continue discussing it with their teams. And, you know, we had to give them that opportunity."

At the end of the interview, Goodell was asked if Hamlin's near-fatal injury will change the attitudes and stances on guaranteed contracts for players. (Hamlin had been playing on a "split contract," which would normally have resulted in him being paid less money for being on injured reserve. The Bills will be paying him in full, despite missing the team's final game, but many players obviously will be missing out on earning their full salaries because they got injured playing football.)

In his answer, Goodell said that NFLPA director DeMaurice Smith was also involved heavily in the conversation about suspending play on Monday night.

"Well, I think as always, all those issues evolve, particularly through collective bargaining agreements. So those are things that we'll continue to look at as time goes on," Goodell answered. "But those are issues that we saw with the Players' Association -- which I would add, too, were a big part of the decision-making [on Monday night]. I was on the phone with De Monday night on several occasions."