When Falcons coach Raheem Morris explained the decision to end Friday night’s preseason game after Lions safety Morice Norris suffered a potentially serious head/neck injury, Morris said he didn’t know whether the league approved of the move.
On Monday, Lions coach Dan Campbell made it clear that the plan went against the directive they had received from the powers-that-be.
Asked by a reporter to explain the type of instruction he received from the league after the Norris injury, Campbell said this:
“Don’t do this to me, alright? So, Raheem and I agreed that that was what we were gonna do. We talked to, you know, [referee] Shawn Hochuli, [he] let us know the game is still on, and we communicated with each other. We told Shawn we’ll be taking knees and he said, ‘I understand,’ and that’s the way it went. And then the game was called.”
It was the right call. It wasn’t a real game. No preseason game is, no matter how much the broadcasters and studio analysts and social-media managers and anyone else pretend otherwise.
Obviously, the default approach is for the game to go on. That’s what initially happened when Bills safety Damar Hamlin nearly died on the field in early 2023. The injured player is attended to, he’s removed from the field, and the game goes on.
In certain circumstances, it shouldn’t. In the fourth quarter of a preseason game, it absolutely shouldn’t. Campbell and Morris knew that, immediately and instinctively.
And once Hochuli realized that there would be no further game action, he did the right thing, too, by ending what would have been a pointless charade.
