Why Bills' Damar Hamlin may be linked with Doug Flutie

Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin could forever be linked with retired quarterback Doug Flutie assuming Hamlin is named the winner of the Associated Press' Comeback Player of the Year Award at the "NFL Honors" ceremony on Thursday night, as is expected. 

According to Alaina Getzenberg of ESPN, Flutie won the award for the 1998 season and began Thursday as the only Bills player in history to ever receive the honor. 

"That's cool. I love that. ... That'd be great," Flutie told Getzenberg about likely being joined by Hamlin in a unique Bills category. "I'd be proud to share that with him any day of the week."

Flutie originally played in the NFL from 1986 through the 1989 season before he spent the better part of the 1990s in the Canadian Football League. He joined the Bills for the 1998 campaign and ultimately helped that year's edition of the club qualify for the playoffs. 

"It kind of established and validated me being back in the NFL," Flutie said about winning Comeback Player of the Year. "That's kind of the way I viewed it. It was very flattering to be acknowledged. I think it's very important to acknowledge guys that fight adversity to get back. ... It's really kind of a resiliency-type award. Sometimes, you look at it as guys that just don't quit."

Of course, nobody would have blamed Hamlin for quitting his active career after he went into cardiac arrest during a "Monday Night Football" game at the Cincinnati Bengals on Jan. 2, 2023. He instead performed well enough during training camp and the preseason this past summer to earn a spot on Buffalo's 53-man roster, and he appeared in five regular-season games and a pair of playoff contests. 

The Pro Football Writers of America voted Hamlin their Comeback Player of the Year Award winner last month. 

"... That night brought it back to reality, that these guys have their own lives and families and wives and kids and I think it changes a little bit the perspective of a regular fan looking at a player and saying, 'Oh, he is just a player,'" Flutie said about the events of Jan. 2, 2023. "No, all of a sudden it became personal and it was the reality of it."

Assuming Hamlin hasn't played the final down of his career, Thursday night should represent just another chapter of what's become one of the most positive sports stories in recent memory.