When safety Damar Hamlin of the Buffalo Bills suffered a frightening injury that put him in cardiac arrest as the nation watched on Monday Night Football, some people said perhaps nothing like that had ever happened in the history of the National Football League.
However, there were at least two other similar tragic incidents, one involving the Oakland Raiders.
In 1971, wide receiver Chuck Hughes of the Detroit Lions collapsed on the field, went into convulsions, and died on the field during a game against the Chicago Bears. Hughes collapsed on his own without being hit, and an autopsy disclosed he died of an internal condition that had not been diagnosed.
Hall of Fame middle linebacker Dick Butkus of the Bears said he looked in Hughes’ eyes as he went down, “And I knew he was dead.”
Hughes was the only player to die on the field during an NFL game.
And then there was the pre-season game between the Raiders and the New England Patriots on Aug. 12, 1978, at the Oakland Coliseum, when quarterback Steve Grogan threw a pass over the middle intended for wide receiver Darryl Stingley.
As the ball flew over Stingley’s hands, safety Jack Tatum hit him from behind with a blow that no one thought was anything out of the ordinary, and Stingley went down.
Not only did he stay down, but he didn’t move, and later it was learned he was paralyzed for life.
As they did with Hamlin, players from both teams surrounded Stingley as he lay on the ground. Eventually, an ambulance drove onto the field and took him about 10 miles away to Eden Hospital in Castro Valley.
“I helped Jack up off the ground after the play,” Raiders linebacker Phil Villapiano recalled. “That was a legal hit, a normal play, nothing unusual about it.
“Later that night, Jack and I went to the hospital to see Darryl, but they wouldn't let us in. People said Jack didn’t care, but I know better. Everyone who knew Jack Tatum knows he was a great guy, but he has been so misunderstood.”
The 5-10 200-pound Tatum wasn’t that big of a guy, but he was perhaps the hardest hitter in NFL history.
You can watch some of Tatum’s greatest hits against Earl Campbell, Sammy White, and Riley Odoms on YouTube, but the one on Stingley didn’t even rank in his top 50, although it haunted him for the rest of his life.
“I always wanted to hit someone hard, and if they got hurt, that was just part of the game,” said Tatum, a five-time Pro Bowl selection. “But you always wanted them to be OK.”
Stingley remained bitter toward Tatum and wouldn’t speak to him for the rest of their lives, and because of that play, Tatum became a villain in the NFL.
But not everybody felt that way.
“I patterned my game after Jack Tatum’s,” said highly-respected Hall of Fame safety Ronnie Lott of the San Francisco 49ers, who also played two seasons with the Raiders later in his career. “If I couldn’t have played like Tatum, I couldn’t have played in the NFL.
“I always had some Raider in me because growing up, Jack Tatum was my idol.”
Tatum didn’t help with his reputation when he wrote a book titled, “They Call Me Assassin,” the first of a three-part series, in which he wrote that he simply played football as hard as he could on every play.
Stingley’s attitude toward him softened later in life when he learned that Tatum had his right leg amputated below the knee due to his battle with diabetes.
“You can’t, as a human being, feel happy about something like that happening to another human being,” Stingley told the Boston Globe in 2003. “Maybe the natural reaction is to think he got what was coming to him, but I don’t accept human nature as our real nature. Human nature teaches us to hate. God teaches us to love.”
Both died fairly young, Stingley at 55 in 2007 in Chicago and Tatum three years later at age 61 in Oakland.
But their names will be linked in NFL lore forever.
The NFL Scouting Combine is February 28-March 6, 2023, held at Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, IN. March 7, 2023, before 4:00 p.m. EST, is the club's deadline to designate Franchise or Transition Players.
March 13-15 is the free agent negotiation period. During the time starting at 12:00 noon EST on March 13 and ending at 3:59:59 p.m., New York time, on March 15, clubs are permitted to contact and enter into contract negotiations with the certified agents of players who will become Unrestricted Free Agents upon the expiration of their 2022 Player Contracts at 4:00 p.m., New York time, on March 15.
The 2023 NFL Year and Free Agency period begins at 4:00 p.m. EST on March 15. The Raiders are expected to be significant players in the free-agent market this season.
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