CINCINNATI — Joe Burrow and D.J. Reader both spoke at a news conference Wednesday, the first time any Bengals players have spoken publicly since Bills safety Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest during Monday Night Football.
Burrow, who spoke first, said the situation was "very, very scary."
"(There was) not a lot of clarity, a lot of rumors ... just a lot of stuff going around, so it was a very emotional 48 hours," Burrow said. "Not a lot of words you can say about what happened."
Reader said no one ever wants to see a player go down the way Hamlin did, calling what occurred a "freak accident." He said Hamlin was going full speed, which is the only what to play the game.
"You see the ambulance come out and (think) he's just getting carted off. Then you see their players coming out of the circle crying and you immediately start to realize it's something different," Reader said. "As football players, you see injuries all the time — it happens all the time in this sport, but when you see other players ... start to cry ... that's when it really starts to sit in that something's going on."
Both players thanked the medical personnel who quickly responded to Hamlin's aid, with Reader noting that kind of help does not happen anywhere else. Reader said he and Trey Hendrickson held hands and prayed before walking out to join the other players.
Head coach Zac Taylor discussed his own experience earlier Wednesday afternoon, noting Burrow, Reader and other Bengals captains approached him and Buffalo head coach Sean McDermott to speak with the Bills captains once teams were ushered to their locker rooms.
Burrow said the players wanted to go talk to the Bills players and "make sure they knew that we felt the same way they did" about not going back out on the field.
Originally, Taylor said he wasn't sure if it was a good idea, but said as soon as they came together "you could tell that was something both locker rooms needed."
Bengals-Bills has been postponed, and NFL executives said the league's focus has only been on Hamlin, not rescheduling. Burrow said the team would be OK with moving forward however Buffalo sees fit.
The Bengals are scheduled to play the Baltimore Ravens at 1 p.m. Sunday. The team did not practice Wednesday but did have a walk-through.
"Unfortunate as it is, we've got a game to play on Sunday," Burrow said. "So as unusual as this week has been, it's business as usual from a football standpoint, unfortunately. ... I mean I don't even really know what to say about it, because it's such a scary, emotional time and guys still have a football game to play on Sunday."
Reader said the team is "still processing" what happened, but doing its best to focus on the Ravens.
"Unfortunately this job's like no other — you don't get paid time leave, you don't get those things week-to-week-to-week," Reader said. "As an athlete, in general, you have to have a certain ability to compartmentalize ... but this is a tough situation."
Burrow said the team has had discussions about what happened and what they have to do going forward. He said there have been side discussions about not playing, but the entire team has not had any conversations.
"It's a short week and it's going to be tough, just like I'm sure it's going to be tough for everybody around the league to go out there and play on Sunday after what happened on Monday night, but that's where we're at," Burrow said.
Hamlin remains at UC Medical Center's ICU. In a statement, the Buffalo Bills said he has had "signs of improvement noted (Tuesday) and overnight."
