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The NFL has denied that the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals were asked to continue playing after a serious incident with Bills safety Damar Hamlin left him requiring CPR on the field and in a critical condition in hospital.
The 24-year-old collapsed during the first quarter of the Monday Night Football match-up after he tackled Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins, whose helmet hit the chest of the Bills player.
Hamlin received CPR on the field for 30 minutes before being rushed to a local hospital, leaving players from both sides looking visibly upset.
Broadcaster ESPN was covering the game, and commentators Joe Buck and Troy Aikman were describing the action when the serious incident unfolded.
Buck seemed to suggest that play may continue, with pictures showing the officials speaking to Bengals head coach Zac Taylor and his Bills counterpart, Sean McDermott.
On the live TV broadcast, Buck said: "The coaches, the two head coaches got together and they'll have five minutes to warm up. Troy, you've played this game for the majority of your life and after that, you have been calling these games, and first of all, I have never seen anything like this and I have said, they have been given five minutes to, quote unquote, get ready to go back to playing.
"That's the word we get from the league and the word we get from down on the field, but nobody is moving and then when we got the update that when, in five minutes, that these players are going to start playing football again, we saw Zac Taylor live, walk across the field to Sean McDermott.
"Players were being told that they have five minutes to get back ready for play and that players were standing around," Buck added.
Troy Vincent, the NFL executive vice president of football operations, denied that any such decision was being discussed. In a conference call with the media, he said that the sole focus was on Hamlin's wellbeing.
Vincent said: "Neither coach was talking about resuming play, the players weren't... How do you resume play after you've seen such a traumatic event occur in front of you real time?
"That's the way we were thinking about it, Commissioner [Roger Goodell] and I."
Vincent said about the suggestion that the players would have been asked to continue playing: "It never crossed our mind to talk about warming up to resume play. That's ridiculous. That's insensitive."
NFL Executive Vice President of Communications Jeff Miller said after the postponement: "There's nothing in consideration right now. Our concern is for the player and his well-being. At the appropriate time, I'm sure that we'll have a conversation around the next steps regarding the game."
NFL's Chief Football Administration Officer Dawn Aponte said that "medical advice guided our decisions" after Hamlin's injury on Monday.
Aponte added that "we made decisions that we believed to be in the best interest of" Hamlin and both teams.
On Tuesday morning, Hamlin's friend and marketing representative Jordon Rooney gave an update on the NFL star.
Rooney wrote in a tweet: "Update on Damar: His vitals are back to normal and they have put him to sleep to put a breathing tube down his throat. They are currently running tests. We will provide updates as we have them."
The Bengals are scheduled to play the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday, January 8, while the Bills are due to face the New England Patriots.
No date has been arranged as yet for the Bills and Bengals game to be replayed.
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