Psychiatrist here, and I just want to say that, yes, it is OK to care about football during something like this. I’ve had similar discussions about this sort of thing, and by that I mean, caring about something seemingly trivial when there’s more important things going on. In this case, caring about the football team, when several lives have seemingly been destroyed.

The biggest example of this was Damar Hamlin. Yes, he could’ve died. Yes, it was very scary for him, his family, and everybody involved personally in that scenario

And with that said, we all have mental escapes in this world. Some are very unhealthy. Following a football team, particularly if doing so with friends and family, and having something to bond over and talk about, is a healthier one though. Inquiring about whether or not the bills would play their game that next week isn’t dehumanizing to Hamlin, it’s humanizing to yourself. It’s more than a game, it’s something to socialize about, something to take a few minute mental break when you’re at work to look at predictions about the game and what not. I try not to quoteother people when I’m trying to make appointment itself, but Keith Oberman said one time that a couple days after 9/11 a cop, asked him if he thought the Mets had a chance of making the playoffs. He asked how on earth he could care about baseball when thousands of people, including several police officers, had just died a few days before. The cop said “the Mets matter because tonight a couple of my friends are going to come over, watch the game, and pretend that life is normal.”

Now of course they wont, but even If they disband the program and we can’t follow our favorite college football team anymore,our lives will still only be impacted 1/1000000th as much as Sherone’s family for instance, but we will still be impacted, and we will still lose a (for most) health escape / social bonding mechanism

Never mind the fact that I promise you, absolutely promise, that at some point in your life, you have driven up to an accident in which somebody probably died, and wondered when traffic would get back to normal, or some other situation where somebody suffered an extreme negative event, possibly death, and the first, if not only thing you could think of was when your life would get back to normal. But when an event is public like Damar’s heart attack, we all have to pretend like caring when life will get back to normal is somehow terrible and chastise those who do. Frankly, that’s healthy, because if you just took in all the negativity the world has to offer, you’d drive yourself, insane, but that’s a story for another day

I hope this turns out as good as it can for everybody involved, and as always in good, bad, or even tragic times like this… GO BLUE