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Music played as Brian Daboll, a ‘3’ affixed alongside the NY on his blue Giants cap, headed to the practice field and Giants players emerged from the Quest Diagnostics Center.
Footballs were tossed around and it seemed like a normal Wednesday, but this could not possibly be Any Given Wednesday.
This was Not Any Given Wednesday in East Rutherford, in Florham Park, and of course not in Orchard Park, or at any of the other 29 towns and cities that house NFL franchises.
The football players who risk limb and in some tragic cases life to play this game were starving for updates on Damar Hamlin, No. 3 on the Buffalo Bills, praying every bit as hard for the reports trickling in of slow progress from his traumatic cardiac arrest event.
The struggle to compartmentalize playing the violent game they love and the possibility that an unimaginable potential tragedy, even one as random and freakish as Hamlin’s, could take the field with them on Any Given Sunday — including this Sunday against the Eagles — was an uncomfortable reality that the Giants were visibly and internally wrestling with on Not Any Given Wednesday.
“I practiced through torn MCL, the flu, coming back COVID, a sprained ankle,” Nick McCloud said, “but I’d say this is probably the toughest one that I had to get through today for sure.”
McCloud, 24, played in the Bills’ secondary with Hamlin. He couldn’t get his friend out of his mind. “Nah, not at all, for real,” McCloud said.
There was no physical contact at practice as per usual on a Wednesday. There will be on Sunday. Giants players, especially the handful who played with Hamlin, will try not to think about him during a game in which if you don’t play your hardest, and against a rival looking to clinch the NFC’s No.
