CINCINNATI – Let’s pick up where we left off last week.

Next time the Buffalo Bills advance to an American Football Conference championship game, they need to win two more games, not one.

As the Bills were in Cincinnati preparing for their Monday Night Football game against the Bengals on Jan. 2, and with both teams among the top three in the AFC, everyone knew that the No. 1 seed in the AFC playoffs might turn on the result of the game.

Being the No. 1 seed has two advantages.

First, given the current NFL-playoff structure, only the No. 1 seed in each conference gets a first-round bye. All other teams, including the No. 2 seed, play in the first round. They don’t get a week off.

Second, a No. 1 seed that advances to the conference-championship game hosts the game. Being the home team, not the visiting team, in the conference-championship game can be the difference between winning and losing.

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As the first quarter on Jan. 2 went on, both teams and their fans were pouring their hearts into a game that they wanted to win.

And then.

And then winning the game suddenly mattered less than what was suddenly before them.

No. 3 for the Bills – safety Damar Hamlin – made what seemed like an ordinary tackle and received what seemed like an ordinary hit.

In an ordinary way, he stood up after the play.

In an ordinary way, he took a few steps.

And collapsed.

For whatever reason, Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest. His very life was in danger. He received cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, or CPR. Stunned Bengals and Bills openly prayed for him and wept. An ambulance took him to a University of Cincinnati hospital where, as of early Jan. 4, he remained in critical condition in intensive care.

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Much has been remarkable about what happened before and after the suspension of the game.

One of them has been how both teams and their fans have conducted themselves.

They quickly understood that winning the game, and perhaps thereby having the No. 1 seed in playoffs, was a distant second, if that, in importance to Hamlin’s health, indeed his life.

Think about it. The Bengals could have tried to pull a fast one. They could have insisted on continuing to play the game and demanded that the Bills forfeit if they didn’t want to continue. That didn’t happen.

The teams and their fans could have all just gone home. That didn’t happen either. Instead, many in effect held a vigil outside of the hospital where Hamlin lay. Others have supported him in other ways.

Although the game was suspended, there are winners.

One winner was fundamental decency. Another is character. Another is the faith demonstrated when Bengals and Bills on the field, and others elsewhere, knelt and bowed their heads.

Decency, character, and faith are all winners in this Monday Night Football game. Each has won.

Those associated with professional-sports teams are usually celebrated – and become heroes – for their athletic ability.

The true heroics from when the Bills visited the Bengals on Jan. 2 derive from the decency, character, and faith that both teams and their fans have demonstrated. For that, they’re all heroes.

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Please contrast that with how you, gentle reader, have seen others conduct themselves in other situations.

Think about times that you’ve done the right thing by demonstrating such decency, character, or faith only to have others show the opposite, perhaps to you personally.

Think about times when others have shown the opposite when they knew or should have known better.

Think about times when they’ve then publicly portrayed themselves – themselves, mind you – as the victims.

All the while they’ve shown neither decency, nor character, nor faith in the true sense of the words yet they pretend they have.

Maybe they should watch Monday Night Football.

They might learn something from the Bengals, the Bills, and their fans.

Randy Elf has never admired a professional-sports team and its fans more than he admired the Bengals, the Bills, and their fans after the Jan. 2, 2023, game.

ç 2023 BY RANDY ELF