ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Damien Harris discovered just this week his first child will be a boy.
Sunday night, an instant after rushing for a Buffalo Bills first down, Harris fell to the ground with a neck injury. He lay motionless and flat on his back. The Highmark Stadium crowd fell silent. The ambulance was summoned.
Left tackle Dion Dawkins checked to make sure Harris was breathing — something the Bills couldn’t immediately see from another teammate 10 months ago — but then walked away, unable to watch Harris get strapped to the backboard and driven away.
“Imagine if he can’t hold his son,” Bills left tackle Dion Dawkins said, unable to stop thinking about the 26-year-old Harris and his expecting wife, Nyasha. “Off of one play? That’s scary, man.”
The injury occurred on Harris’ only offensive snap in the Bills’ 14-9 victory over the New York Giants and evoked memories of safety Damar Hamlin’s cardiac arrest last season. The game in Cincinnati initially was postponed and later canceled as the Bills spent the next couple days wondering if Hamlin was going to survive.
“Especially after last year, any time the ambulance has to come on the field, it brings PTSD,” Dawkins said. “It’s hard. It’s really hard, man.
“I hate to say it like this, but before…
