ESPN NFL analyst Bart Scott made waves yesterday by insinuating that Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins was partially responsible for the injury that saw Buffalo Bills defensive back Damar Hamlin collapse on the field due to cardiac arrest. WFAN afternoon host Craig Carton viewed that opinion as preposterous.
A caller into Carton & Roberts tried to agree with Scott’s claim, before the hosts disagreed with the point.
“Look, with respect — I respect Bart — he played the game, you and I didn’t,” Carton said to co-host Evan Roberts. “But I watched, you’ve watched it a hundred times. There’s nothing wrong with what Tee Higgins did. And to try now to find blame in a situation that’s like a unicorn, that will most likely — knock on wood, at least — never happen again and hasn’t happened in the history of the NFL, to me, I think, I don’t wanna say outrageous but its kind of a sad attention grab. What did Tee Higgins do? He didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t even think it’s relevant to what happened,” Roberts argued.
“There’s nothing special — one way or the other — about the violence of the hit or the tackle,” Carton said. “So why are we looking to blame somebody for — what appears to be — a very unique situation that nobody could have seen coming? He didn’t spear him, he didn’t target him, it wasn’t a hit to the head, it wasn’t a hit with the head. It didn’t go against any of the many rules that are in place to protect players.”
Carton later admitted he didn’t hear the exact comments made by Scott, but reiterated his point that there doesn’t always have to be someone to blame for a situation. He added the focus should have remained on the personnel who rushed to save Hamlin’s life and not try find blame in blameless situation.
Roberts added that Higgins — in addition to being a football player — is a human being, and has likely been greatly affected by the situation.
“Everyone’s gotta make it about them,” Carton concluded. “That’s the world we live in now. Let me be the guy that’s out there, and instead of talking about what happened, you’re talking about me. That’s one of the worst parts of the media today. It’s just ‘Let me say something that makes me the story now’. And we’ve been watching that online last night, and all day today,” alluding to the reaction to the tweet from Skip Bayless that the FS1 host claims was misconstrued and misrepresented.
