Tee Higgins was shaken after Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest during a Week 16 game between the Bengals and Bills, and understandably so.
Higgins had been the one to hit Hamlin before the Bills safety collapsed. The contact had looked completely clean and ordinary, but Hamlin suffered commotio cordis, a stopping of the heart that occurs after blunt trauma to the chest.
That left him needing urgent medical treatment and fighting for his life.
As Higgins assessed the scene, he was naturally distraught. After all, he knew Hamlin; the two had hung out in the summer of 2022 at Tyler Boyd's annual camp, as Boyd knew both — Higgins as his current teammate and Hamlin as his college teammate at Pitt.
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That was part of the reason that Hamlin's mother, Nina, had reached out to Higgins to let him know he wasn't at fault for Hamlin's cardiac arrest.
"Just telling me that she's thinking of me, praying for me and things like that," Higgins said after the incident, per ESPN. "Telling me that he's OK."
Higgins has expressed gratitude — and amazement — that Hamlin has made such a remarkable recovery.
"Things like that, what happened to him, doesn't usually happen, you know what I'm saying?" Higgins said, per ESPN. "It's a miracle what happened."
And in the months since that incident, the friendship between the two has grown stronger. Here's what to know about the relationship between the two as they return to face off on the field where it happened in Week 9.
MORE: Timeline of Damar Hamlin's cardiac arrest and his 'remarkable' recovery
Tee Higgins & Damar Hamlin's relationship, explained
Higgins and Hamlin first forged a friendship during their appearance at Boyd's camp. The two former ACC stars got along well and were fast friends thanks to their mutual connection to Boyd.
"When I met him, he was a cool guy," Higgins said in January of meeting Hamlin, per ESPN. "You know, big smile, 'What's up bro? How you doing?'"
Once it was clear that Hamlin was going to be OK in wake of the cardiac arrest, Higgins expressed that he was looking forward to seeing him at the Bengals-Bills postseason game in Buffalo.
"I'm pretty sure we're just going to chop it up, laughs and giggles and just be happy to see him," Higgins said, per the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.
Since then, the friendship between Higgins and Hamlin has grown. As ESPN detailed, the two have kept in contact since their collision on Jan. 2, 2023, with their primary methods of communication being "checking on each other or responding to something funny on Instagram one might have posted."
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And Hamlin's now-closer relationship with Higgins, as well as his longer-term camaraderie with Boyd, was part of what earned him an invite to an offseason off-roading trip with the Bengals' top-three receivers — Boyd, Higgins and Ja'Marr Chase.
Higgins and Hamlin will be forever bonded by that play, so it's nice to see that they are forging a friendly and positive bond off the field as well.
