ESPN analyst Bart Scott found himself on the receiving end of heat from many sports fans this week for his comments on the play that sent Damar Hamlin into cardiac arrest.
Scott appeared on First Take on Tuesday and seemed to insinuate that had Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins not lowered his body and head into Hamlin's chest, that the injury would've never happened. He also thought plays like that by offensive players need to be better regulated by the NFL and referees.
On 98.5 The Sports Hub Wednesday, hosts Scott Zolak and Marc Bertrand were confused about how Scott would think what Higgins did was out of the realm of normalcy for an NFL game.
"That couldn't be any more of a normal play than you would ever get," Zolak said. "Now if you had defenseless receivers hung out over the middle, I'm all for taking that hit out of the game - trying to decapitate the guy or trying to dismember him in the back corner of an end zone as he's trying to tip his toes in and maintain his balance."
"I don't think the league's gonna look into this and say come on we gotta regulate that," he added. "I don't know how you regulate that unless you play flag football. That's how you regulate it - flag football."
Bertrand cited a statement by Hamlin's family saying they didn't want anyone blaming or going after Higgins for what happened. Beetle said he didn't get why folks would think it was Higgins' fault.
"I don't understand why anyone would get on the player for playing the sport of football," he said. "Knowing he's about to get hit there, knowing he's about to be tackled. And he did he lowered his shoulder to get as many yards as possible."
"I think we all looked for it when the hit first happened like wow what was so violent about it?" Bertrand continued. "Nothing. He hit him with a lot of force, but that's football. It was a football play."
Both Zolak and Bertrand brought up the fact that Bart Scott played in a different era of the NFL where there weren't the kind of rules and calls you see incorporated into the game today. Bertrand figured maybe Scott didn't do as good a job trying to explain his point without it coming off as blaming Higgins.
"I guess I could see if he's just trying to explain why maybe the hit was unexpected for the defensive player," Bertrand said. "But to say that it was somehow a play that needs to be regulated out of the game - he's talking about calls and penalties - are you insane?"
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