Damar Hamlin's football journey has reached a new high.
Hamlin will start at safety in Sunday's Week 1 game against the Arizona Cardinals, Bills coach Sean McDermott announced on Wednesday. The start will mark Hamlin's first since he suffered cardiac arrest during a game against the Cincinnati Bengals on Jan. 2, 2023.
"Truly a blessing," Hamlin told reporters on Wednesday. "I reflect back on the whole process and not knowing if I would be able to play again. … Sitting with that uncertainty was eating at me because football is truly my passion. It’s the thing that I’ve always been obsessed with my entire life. … It all just goes to the power of being process oriented and taking things one day at a time and accepting where you are at each moment of the process.”
Hamlin started in 13 of the 15 games in which he appeared during the 2022 season, the same season in which Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest in Week 17.
That moment -- which required heroism on the part of first responders and medical personnel to save Hamlin's life -- cast Hamlin's football future in doubt. If anything, football was the last priority on anyone's mind.
That didn't stop Hamlin, though, as he returned in 2023 to participate in five games primarily as a special teamer. Now, he'll line up alongside teammate Taylor Rapp, representing the revamped safety tandem after veterans Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde departed Buffalo in the offseason.
"What else can't this young man do? He basically went through what he went through on the field, you guys have written about that over and over, and to come back from that," McDermott said on Wednesday. "It's one thing to come back off of an ACL or a broken bone. It's another thing to come back off of what he came back off of, right? Let alone just to decide to play football and contact football in full pads at the NFL level.
"I don't think I need to say anything more. It's incredible. I think God's hands have been on Damar and his family and will continue to be. We're just extremely proud and full of gratitude to watch him go through what he's went through and where he is now."