Sean McDermott was making calls to rifle through potential draft picks—always an important piece of the process for the Bills coach, but even more so during a 2021 evaluation cycle still affected by the pandemic.
Some of those calls wind up being more memorable than others. And, as such, there was one name McDermott knew to jot down after going down a checklist of players with Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi.
“He had other players that were coming out that year as well—in particular on defense,” McDermott says. “The player for the Titans, [Rashad] Weaver, he made some big plays Saturday night. And so we were talking about him and talking about another D-lineman that was coming out, and then even potentially another DB. And Pat kept bringing up Damar [Hamlin]. And I mean, when a coach does that—and I have so much respect for Coach Narduzzi—he’s doing that for a reason.
“It was just, overall, as a player and a person, the total package, right? Like what you’re looking for when you acquire a player, the total package of player, person, heart, desire, work ethic and character. He just couldn’t stop talking about Damar.”
The Bills took Damar Hamlin with the 212th pick that April. Drafting a guy in that range, almost by definition, is taking a flier on someone. They didn’t know he’d evolve into a starter. When you draft a guy at that point, you don’t even know whether he’ll make the team. McDermott just knew that, if Narduzzi was right—and he usually was—there was something about Hamlin.
And here McDermott is now, almost two years later, to tell everyone who Hamlin is, the same way Narduzzi did for him back then. He’s done it, of course, over the last week, in the aftermath of the terrifying scene in Cincinnati on Monday night, when Bills assistant athletic trainer Denny Kellington administered CPR to Hamlin on the field. He’d done it as Hamlin’s survival seemed to be in doubt into Tuesday.
Now, he was doing it in a happier circumstance. Yes, the Bills finally got to answer Hamlin’s first question after regaining consciousness——on Sunday, with their fourth straight win, by a 35–23 score, over AFC East rival New England. More importantly, Hamlin got to see the whole thing from his hospital bed at the UC Medical Center in Ohio, clearly healing up faster than anyone expected. Which took McDermott back to Narduzzi.
“He kept talking about Damar,” McDermott says. “You just knew there was something different about this young man.”
