While people like to say sports are “just games,” those who watch those sports know the truth. They can be one of the things that divide families due to their “loyalties,” and for those who play them, it can hurt them badly. For leagues like the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, and so on, injuries are something that players simply have to accept. It can happen at any time and in various ways. All you can do is “play your game” and hope for the best. Sadly, a real-life incident in the NFL has had grand ripple effects, including within NFL 23.

If you didn’t hear, on January 2nd, Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin was playing a game against the Cincinnati Bengals. When they were playing, Hamlin got hit hard, eventually leading to him collapsing on the field and going into cardiac arrest. When that happened, he was given CPR for minutes on end as the players circled him to “protect” him from prying eyes, and then the game was eventually canceled. It was easily one of the scariest moments in the history of the NFL. If not sports as a whole.

Following that, many wondered how the NFL and those affiliated with it would handle the situation and try to ensure that something like it never happened again. We now know one of those answers, as NFL 23 will remove a celebration that might stir some negativity right now.

In the game, you can do a celebration move that will have a team member lie on the ground and then get CPR.

“EA Sports is taking steps to remove the celebration from Madden NFL 23 via an update in the coming days,” a spokesperson for Electronic Arts noted not too long after the incident with Hamlin occurred.

Some might argue that this is an “overreaction,” but those people didn’t see the frenzy that happened in the days following Hamlin’s near-death experience. Yes, we said “near-death experience,” as he almost died many times over. Thankfully, he has recovered and was even able to message people to showcase that he was conscious and able to move around.

What’s even scarier is that, as of now, doctors still don’t know what caused him to have that cardiac arrest. As such, we should treat the whole situation with care and sympathy. So removing a celebration from a video game that may invoke memories of this? A small price to pay for peace of mind.

Source: CBS Sports