During the Monday night football game on January 3rd, 2023, the two power houses matched up for the number one seed in the AFC, but everyone would have to wait to see the exciting game.

There were nine minutes left in the first quarter; the score was 7-3 with the Bengals up and the Bills trailing behind, the Bengals had the ball when Joe Burrow threw a pass to Tee Higgins. When Damar Hamlin went for the tackle, he got hit hard. He was able to get up, but then fell almost immediately. After 20 minutes, he was carted off the field after having his heart stop for 9 minutes. The game was then canceled.

“Mario, [Hamlin’s father], talking to us as a team, he kinda told us — demanded us — [to play for his son], and you can’t not honor his request to go out there and charge forward to the best of our abilities,” Allen said. “Today’s news was a lot of tears of joy, but … that’s what he wants, that’s what his dad wants, and guys are excited to get out there. … We wanna go out there and play for 3. It’ll be a huge driving force,” says the Bills quarterback Josh Allen.

Hamlin was released from the hospital and is back in Buffalo. He has been watching the Buffalo Bills games and has been cheering them on from the hospital.

During the Bills versus Patriots game, Nyheim Hines scored on the opening kickoff for the first time in three years and three months. Josh Allen saw this as an act from a higher power.

“You want the truth? It was spiritual. It really was. Bone-chilling. It was special. I can’t remember a play that touched me like that, I don’t think in my life … It was just spiritual. And I just, I was going around, just something I was going around my teammates saying ‘God’s real.’ Like, you can’t draw that one up, write that one up any better,” says Josh Allen in a post-game interview after a win against the Patriots.

Hamlin has been recovering a lot better and has been in better condition. He is out of the hospital and is going through tests to pinpoint exactly how to treat his medical conditions.