After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 2

I'm JR of the JR Sport Reef show on CBS Sports Radio. I'm also the host of the new podcast, Agents of Inclusion. We talk to a different Special Olympics athlete every week to learn how sports can bring us together. We're bringing both the disability and non-disability community to one community, all one people, one family. It took me a little while, but I decided to claim autism as my superpower.

When you hear the word autism, don't let that hinder you from doing whatever it is that you want to do. That's what Special Olympics tells you. You get involved in sports, but then you take it from the playing field out into real life. Family means to me community, acceptance, love, embracing a person just as they are. That's what Special Olympics did for me. It's all about family.

Subscribe to Agents of Inclusion on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. It is our hump show and while I did not host on Sunday night, trust me when I say I feel like I did a face plant right into the hump. Do you want to know why? Because, and this is going to be the case for two more weeks, actually it's going to get more complicated moving forward.

I'm not complaining, I'm just saying is all. With the Syracuse class that I'm teaching taking place on Monday evenings, with the schedule that I maintain most of the time, again these past two weekends, I did not work on Sunday night, which meant that I could drive to Syracuse without having been up all night. It's a seven hour round trip. 460 miles roughly is what I drive up and back from my house in New Jersey, northern New Jersey to Syracuse University. It is a long drive up and over mountains in central and upstate New York. Oh my goodness, there's places where I don't even have a cell signal between we'll say the New York, New Jersey border on up toward the Binghamton area. There are places where you're going up and over mountains, you're climbing, there's a lot of elevation and not great phone signal. So there's not a lot out there.

All that to say there are a few small towns out there, farming communities, there's a bunch of woods, there's mountains until you get north of Binghamton heading, for those of you who know the routes, heading north on interstate 81 up to the lake and Syracuse, there's not a whole lot on the drive. So I have to entertain myself. Phone calls definitely help. I try to schedule phone calls when I'm driving, but also music.

I do, I actually was listening to the Star Wars soundtracks on Monday to keep my brain entertained because I love the music of John Williams so much. So yeah, this week I didn't have to work overnight Sunday night, but the next couple of weeks I'll do our Sunday night show, get off the air, which it's standard, right? Six o'clock Eastern time, head home, take care of the dog, have breakfast, presumably have a bag packed, sleep for three hours, drive to Syracuse for three and a half hours. How about that? Drive longer than I sleep, host my class or I shouldn't say host, teach my class, couple of hours of prep in the hotel before hosting the show.

Thankfully the commute is all of 30 seconds as I walk across the street. And then back to the hotel, grab a quick nap, turn around and drive back to New Jersey to then host the show in New York City on the following night. Yes, I am crazy. Absolutely. So next year, next spring, the sports director and I, we would like to expand this to an 11 week class. Is that maybe not a good idea? Producer Jay's not paying any attention to me at all until I said 11 weeks and he looked over at me. What are you doing in there? Working? I know you're working.

Did that pique your interest? 11 weeks of that? Could you imagine? 11 weeks every Sunday, Monday driving seven hours round trip while hosting two overnight shows and teaching a class.

Does that sound like a smart move to you? It's a lot. It's a lot. It's fine. It's fine. It's totally fine.

Well, it's totally fine until all of a sudden my radio shows or my classes aren't as good because I'm so dog tired. That might not be a smart thing to do. So here's my idea. Maybe fly. Now, see, the only thing is that by the time you incorporate security and being in the airport ahead of time and potential delays, it could end up, I might as well just drive, right?

Yeah. But at least I don't have to fly the plane. I can ride in the plane as opposed to flying. It just may not be, thankfully Syracuse pays my travel expenses, but it may not be the quick fix that I think it could be. But you don't sleep well on airplanes. No, I suck at sleeping on airplanes. But the idea would be that I wouldn't have to drive the three and a half hours.

Instead, I'd be there in an hour roughly. But that doesn't incorporate the time at airports and the stress of air travel never quite going, especially post pandemic, never quite going the way that you want it to, or very rarely. We need a CBS Sports Radio private jet, I think. Do we? Do we? Yeah.

I'm pretty sure that Boomer as a member of CBS gets to take said private jet very often. I don't know that it's available to us, but I do not want to teach remotely. That's one area in which Olivia, who hired me or who helped me to create the class and then pitch my class to the dean, she and I agree that it should be in person. So I guess if I sign up, I'm going to have to be all in for 11 weeks.

That's a lot. This is why I don't think I can do it during football season. So she potentially wants me to teach it next fall, but I don't think that's a good idea because you know our schedule, the rigor of football season is 16 hour workday, Sunday into Monday. Could you imagine sleeping three hours, turning around and driving to Syracuse? Not on a Monday. Mondays during the football season are, yeah. There's a chance I could do it on a Tuesday or Wednesday night, but still the idea is I'd have to drive after working an overnight show and then, yeah. So I suppose I could use all of my vacation now that I have four weeks per year, could use it all. Just take off every Monday? No, no I can't. There's too much going on. Yeah, there's too much happening. No, I wouldn't be taking off Tuesdays. It would be Sunday nights that I'd be taking off, but I love Sunday nights. So be careful what you wish for.

I want to be an adjunct professor. The idea sounds great, like extending the class. I think that's awesome. It is. Here's what I love though.

You know what helps? The paycheck. Nice. I got my first ever paycheck with the Syracuse University logo on it.

That was pretty dang cool. Do you know how much money I spent myself on the campus of Syracuse University? It's come full circle. Not only did I host my first ever show from campus as a professional, so not as a student, but as a professional 20 plus years later, but now they're paying me. Instead of me paying them.

Like I said, the least they could do. It's just so cool. It's amazing how this is. It's a surreal experience and the students are, now I'm maybe not a great judge. They seem to be very engaged.

They don't have a choice. They have to participate because that's part of their grade. That's how I'm grading them, but they seem to be engaged. They really are into the assignments. I've actually come up with some really fun assignments, Jay. Maybe at some point I'll share the assignments I'm having the students do because they're really creative.

I actually think that I would have enjoyed having assignments like this if I was in school doing this now. And I've heard from a bunch of them. They laugh, you know how I am.

I'm just a total spaz, right? So I make them laugh. I tell them stories about the show and use examples of when I'm talking to them about various elements of a radio show, use examples of things that have happened with us or with me personally. And so they laugh a lot too. They may be laughing at me, but at least they're laughing. So they're engaged.

They are engaged. And so far so good. The only thing is I had to crack down on them because we have a class blog, okay? I don't love the word blog.

It's so trendy. I have a blog, whatever. I essentially want them to have an ongoing conversation about what they're learning, what they're taking away, where the challenges are, because ultimately that's what radio is. It's conversation.

Now it's cerebral. It's calculated. It can be planned out. It certainly should be researched and prepped, but ultimately you're talking to people.

That's what you're doing. So I want them to practice talking to people that they maybe don't know that well or that they didn't have a pre-existing relationship with. I'm trying to get them to do it. So the first two weeks, nothing on the blog. So I said to them this past, no, they're getting graded on it. Twenty percent of their grade is participating in this blog. Again, it's an ongoing conversation. So I said to them, I'll let you start now. Get your butts to the blog because if you don't, none of you are getting A's. Their faces.

How many posts now? So at first I was intimidated because I thought, am I going to be a B-I-T-C-H? I don't want to be one of those professors that they hate because I ask them to do something that they don't want to do. But here's the thing. They don't have anything to read. They listen to audio. That's what they do. They're doing these super fun assignments where they're, this is one that I asked them to do for this past Monday.

Pick a sports figure. Prep for an interview. I mean, that's great training, right? It's a great opportunity. Also, pick a topic that you want to talk about on your proverbial radio show. Research it.

Give me the angles and how you'd approach it. And I was actually really proud of them. Listen to the guest list they came up with. One guy's from St. Louis, Albert Pujols.

One guy said Rob Manfred as the commissioner of Major League Baseball. Another guy came, and there's one female, she came up with Ja Morant. I was really proud of her. She was, she wants to be a sideline reporter, so this was a big deal for her.

She wanted to interview Ja Morant. Someone else said the manager of the Rays, Kevin Cash, for the crazy weird success they've had despite the lowest payrolls in baseball, right? Somebody else said the manager, oh, the GM, the GM of the Sacramento Kings.

Can you name the GM of the Sacramento Kings right now? I was really impressed with that one. So the interviews were all very timely. They're, they're putting thought into it. So here's the deal. I'm giving you these great, fun assignments. Go do the one that's not fun. It doesn't even have to be that it's not fun. I mean, just get into it. Seriously, write something. All I'm asking you to do is have a conversation about the class.

It can't be that hard. No, it's no, you're not writing like, you know, I'm not asking you to write a term paper. Thank you. I'm just asking you to post on a blog and having ongoing conversation. So does that seem unreasonable of me as Professor Lawrence? No, I don't think so.

You don't think so? Especially since it's 20%. Do you want to pose as a student and start? Yeah, you get an easy 20% if you have a conversation on a blog. Do you make them read it to the class and share it? No, it's not even, no, it's not even going to be done in class. It's something that I want you to do outside of class because we only meet once a week and I want to see your thoughts and how you're processing what you're learning. So it's about kind of getting them to, first of all, it's conversation, but then it's getting them to continue thinking and processing what we're learning even outside of class. I said to them, I hated group projects when I was in school because I did all the work.

I was the one that usually carried my partner or partners. This is your only group project. You don't even have to look at each other. You don't have to get together. All you have to do is write stuff. That's all you have to do. That sounds like a very easy percentage of a group.

It sounds like a gimme, honestly. Thank you, Jay. You don't have to read it in front of the class.

You don't have to stand up. You don't have to read anyone else's. Just write it and then move on. I'm going to read it. Nobody else is going to read it. Who cares? If you had to read it in front of the class, I'd say, all right, that's a little, because I don't know, whatever.

I could see people being against that. No, they're presenting all of their weekly assignments in front of the class. There's only eight of them. One guy dropped out, but actually I'm really happy because it's as much as I can handle with eight students.

And because they all get a chance to participate, it actually works out really well. If there were more, I wouldn't be able to hear from them on each of the assignments. So they are presenting their assignments in class.

But this blog, 20% of your grade to do nothing but post a couple of comments multiple times per week. You're not sharing your thoughts. You're just writing them down. That's all you're doing.

Right. Sharing in front of the class when it's your paper or your research, that's not really your thoughts and your emotions. That's easier. You're just doing what you studied. And I said to them, I don't even care where the topics are.

Somebody start a thread. What did you learn in class? That's it.

What are you getting out of the class? That's it. Or how about something to do with the NBA playoffs? I don't really care. I just want them to be talking or conversing over this blog. That's all I ask.

What snacks should we bring next class? Actually, you want to know how one of them saved my butt? That's so funny because that would be you, right?

That would be the conversation you would start on the blog, producer J. That's a good one. Want to hear something crazy? Because I was kind of doing this quick turnaround from the return to Arizona, not being fully unpacked and then packing a different bag to go to Syracuse. I forgot my phone charger. Have you ever gone on a trip and forgotten your phone charger?

Oh my gosh. So right. 24 hours without a phone charger is not a good idea. So afraid to do anything on the phone.

Exactly. So I get to class and I had to throw myself on the mercy of a bunch of college students. And you know me, I despise iPhones, right? So I do not have an iPhone. So I walk into class. Does anyone here have an Android?

Does anyone have an Android? And there's this one student who said, oh, I think I can help you out. I was like, that's it. Extra credit. So he let me his charger. I was able to charge it during class. And then by the time I got home, so this is, let's say from about six o'clock in the evening or seven o'clock in the evening, Eastern time, until I returned home at, we'll say 3 30 on Tuesday afternoon, I was down to 4%. But I went all that, I went all that time on one phone charge. That's stressful. That's just stressful. That's what it is.

4%. My mother called and I couldn't even see because the screen had shut down. I couldn't even see who it was. I just answered the phone.

Hello. Because, because the screen had gone dark, right? It was on 4%. It was, it was maps or anything.

No, no, no. I know that. Well, I haven't, I have a Garmin GPS. I do use maps on my phone every now and then, but I do have a Garmin GPS if I need it for this situation.

But no, I've got the route down at this point. Yeah. Crazy stuff. Forget my phone charger.

Have to borrow a charger from a student. Thank goodness. And all this upside down living. Well, it makes you old. That's what they say about people who work overnights and third shift.

It makes you old much quicker. Well, okay. I'm going to get even older as an adjunct professor. Oh, well, I love it. I already love it. It's two classes in and I'm already hooked. Really enjoyed it this past weekend.

Felt like I was much more comfortable and that they would be too. All right, coming up, the Boston Celtics have a new MVP. What, what? Also, we get to hear from Damar Hamlin yet again.

It's been a while. So excited to see his face and to hear his voice on Tuesday as part of the Buffalo Bills Voluntary OTAs. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence.

Send us your questions for Ask Amy anything that's just over an hour from now on Twitter, ALaw Radio, or show Twitter After Hours, CBS, plus our Facebook page. I feel as though producer Jay's got his work cut out for him because we've had a bunch of entries, a bunch of submissions. So that's all him. That's on his shoulders. But that comes up next hour. Ask Amy anything here on CBS Sports Radio.

You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. Brockton rips it away running with Tatum. Brockton going to hand to Tatum at the last second. He steps back and scores off the glass.

Derek White returns to Tatum. Pretty good look. Right side three.

Got it. Those are two easy looks there. Set the pick. He's been so good you don't even talk about it. Derek White deep on the left side against Ray Young. They run away from him so he takes a quick three and drills it.

That's a great answer. You wouldn't know the Celtics are up by 20 with two and a half minutes to go the way they're defending. Bogdanovich long cross court, John Collins.

Bump by Derek White. Kick out Trey Young. Trey Young with a shot locked out of four. Launches blocked by Tatum. White comes up with it. Lean for Tatum who flushes with the right hand and how poetic is that?

Tell the busser out to go ahead and crank the busser up. It's over. This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. The Atlanta Hawks were pesky but way too much Derek White. Yet not Jason Tatum hearing the MVP chants on Tuesday in the Garden in Boston. No, instead it was Derek White who, get this, has 50 points in the first two games of the Celtic series against the Hawks in which they now have a 2-0 lead.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio, the voices of Sean Grandy and Cedric Maxwell on Celtics Radio and yet Derek White with another 26 points. So 24 in the opener, 26 tonight and he's more and more comfortable in his role as a guy who can supplement the scoring. Last year was kind of a whirlwind ever since I got traded for a lot of reasons but I mean this year from the first day I just felt comfortable and just trying to get better each and every day and the team's doing a great job just empowering me and helping me out throughout the whole ride. We're just so much more of a dynamic team when D. White is asserting himself and being aggressive and not being passive.

We've talked about it being too passive and looking for looking for guys too much. He's too good of a guy but these last few games being aggressive, making the right play, attacking the rim, not necessarily waiting just makes us that much better of a team. So for Derek White to be able to provide this type of a scoring pop is a huge deal for the Celtics because then you can't just focus on Jason Tatum. You can't just focus on Jalen Brown who also played 36 minutes and was in double figures. You can't just focus on Marcus Smart and how he distributes the basketball. You can only focus on so many guys and would you call Derek White a superstar?

No. But he's one of those role players that is comfortable and right now is working it. 11 of 16 from the floor. He took more shots than Jalen Brown did but the Celtics are unselfish. They will spread the basketball around. Also had seven rebounds.

He's working under the glass. A couple assists, a steal, and three blocked shots. Three blocked shots. As a team, the Celtics had a dozen blocked shots. So using the physical defense, using that presence in the paint specifically to be able to keep the Hawks off balance and also make it more difficult for them to get quality shots. Right now for the Hawks, they're giving up a lot of points in the paint. Atlanta's, they're going to be swept out of this series if they don't figure out a way to limit the Celtics access in the lane. 64 points in the paint for the Celtics in this game.

That's more than half of their points. And the Celtics have a lot of ways they can beat you. They've got guys who will drive and dish. They've got guys who will drive and take the ball all the way to the rack. They certainly can shoot the three and while the threes aren't always dropping, tonight they hit 15 of their 33. And where is Trey Young? That's a problem.

Now of course, he can light it up at any time as well. He did finish with 24. It's not the total that should stand out.

It's the fact that he went 9 of 22 from the floor and hit just two of his eight triples. Obviously everybody knows the defenses are key towards me and it's up to me to make the right decision and right reason. Throughout the games today, I think I did in the first quarter early on and then kind of late in that first quarter kind of lost the ball a couple times and had a few turnovers and it kind of got out of sorts. I didn't play my best today and I know I will going forward.

I'm not worried. I thought we started the game really really well and you know we're playing very well and you know I think midway through the first quarter we went for a long stretch where we didn't score and you know they're able to exploit that the other way in transition and that really now we're playing from behind for the majority of the game. Quinn Snyder, head coach of the Hawks, kind of pointing to their mistakes and the Celtics did capitalize 22 points off the Hawks' turnovers but it's not done and the Celtics they've got some veterans who will keep them stable, keep them even keel. Still a long way to go even though this is a team that is accustomed to success in the playoffs and went to the Eastern Conference Finals and then won the East last season.

We did what we were supposed to do. Held home court and now we got the real challenge of the playoffs which is winning on the road so you know they're gonna play better at home and we're gonna have to step up our level play. Derek White, 50 points in the first two games of the Celtics. You know you are in for it if Derek White is scoring or averaging 25 points per game against you.

It's after hours with Amy Lawrence here on CBS Sports Radio. I told you earlier that literally in the 90 minutes before the show began, the NBA hands down a one game suspension for Draymond Green in large part because he is a repeat offender. The statement from the NBA says this, the suspension based in part on Green's history of unsportsmanlike acts. As I said to you last night, his reputation precedes him. His resume goes before him. He's got a rep. Let's be fair.

Let's be honest. I don't think that it was a flagrant two or if it was a flagrant two, what Sabonis did should also have been categorized the same way. If Dray had fallen hard, maybe fallen on a knee or hit his head, you can be sure that Sabonis would have been tagged with a harsher penalty besides a technical.

So I don't love the disparity of the two ways that that these penalties were handed out, but it's impossible to see Draymond Green in a vacuum. Now the other star player that we're waiting on, well, there's two actually, right? We're waiting on news for a couple of star players. We got the news about Draymond Green.

As we look ahead to the upcoming NBA playoff schedule, though, coming up on Wednesday, both Memphis and Milwaukee are hosting game twos in their own arenas. What about Giannis, the Tenecumpo? The last I knew he did not practice on Monday, Tuesday.

He did not practice on Tuesday. Though the Bucks are optimistic, he could in fact play in game two against the Miami Heat. So remember, Miami won that first game over the Bucks and took the home court advantage away from Milwaukee. Chris Middleton had some real good stretches. Bobby Portis was great in stretches, but they need Giannis. He is their MVP.

Without him, success is not sustainable over the long term. Certainly not when you start to face the best teams in the league, and three of the best teams in the league are in the Eastern Conference. So the Bucks don't want to go down 0-2 at home. They are optimistic that Giannis will play after that hard fall on his back, but they don't know for sure or they at this point aren't willing to say.

He is officially listed as doubtful, but I've seen the word hopeful. I don't know how those two things go together. Someone's lying to us.

I don't know who. Injury reports, though, they're often not completely accurate because teams are okay with keeping some of this information to themselves. It's just that not every sport can do what hockey does and say upper body injury if someone has, I don't know, an ingrown fingernail or lower body injury if someone got kicked in the side or skated in the side.

I guess it would be bladed in the side, right? I mean, lower body injury could mean that anything. Well, that's what I'm saying.

My toe hurts or I have a shattered left leg. Yes. It doesn't matter.

Lower body. Okay. Right. But I do appreciate, though, that they don't want these body parts to become targets in a game. I mean, with the speed and the power of the NHL and the fact that they're carrying sticks, I don't mind it. It's just that when it comes to betting, you know that now that's the thing, is that without a specific injury, the NHL is going to have to change it soon or their betting market is going to drop off or it's going to fall behind NBA, NFL. That's why, let's be honest, that's why the league, the NFL specifically, will find teams if they are not accurate with their injury reports because they recognize that money lines are set based on these injury reports. Which is why you no longer have a probable. That's also part of it, too, because, again, teams get away with all kinds of nonsense.

If you're going to be in bed and partner with all the gambling different companies, you've got to be able to give the gambling public the information that they need to be able to place these bets. And as much as we want to play, you know, over the top with, you know, being so angelic of the idea of, well, we don't want it to make a target on the player and it's about the player. Great, that's in every sport. Every sport that a guy is hurt, you can target the area that they're hurt. We understand the concept. It's not about making them. Okay, but not every sport is carrying sticks as weapons.

I get it. In the NFL, could anything be more physical than that? I mean, really, it's, you can't be in bed with the gambling community and then not give them the information that they need to be able to bet on the game.

It's ridiculous. Okay, so back to these two injuries that we know of. Giannis is, again, did not practice on Tuesday. His list of is doubtful, though I've seen the word hopeful that the Bucks are still hopeful he can log some time.

Mike Butenholzer talking about his MVP on Tuesday. You know, we have 24 plus hours before game time, so, you know, he'll get treatment. We'll see how he feels. You know, I think there's been a lot of progress and hopefully there's more on the next day or so. So not quite ready to say he's out or in, but just no.

No, no, I'm not, but thank you for clarifying. Now, as for Ja Morant, he's listed as a game time decision. Taylor Jenkins on Tuesday as well talking about his star. MRI yesterday definitely showed a re-aggravation of his hand injury that he had in the Milwaukee game, you know, dealing with some pain, some soreness. Symptoms are slightly improving from the other night. He's going to be a game time decision.

He's going to come in, get working in the morning, test it out, see how he's feeling. It's soft tissue, soft tissue bruising between the bones. So bruising, no like ligament hair?

No, no, no. So they did have x-rays on Ja's hand after the Grizzlies dropped their opener on Sunday and this is a series against the Lakers. So the MRI that Taylor Jenkins is talking about revealed that there's some soft tissue bruising in his hand.

I don't know if it can get worse if he continues to play or if it gets hit again, but he used his hand to break a fall. So remember he was he was called for a charge. This is the fourth quarter of the opener against Anthony Davis.

That's actually kind of funny. A Ja Morant charge against Anthony Davis. It takes a whole lot to charge into Anthony Davis. Anyway he uses his right, he actually gets the brunt of it, uses his right hand to break this fall and that's where the pain, the the tissue is aggravated. Don't know if he can make it worse if he continues to do it. I can imagine though the bruise is extremely painful and so trying to rehab but time is of the essence. He's progressing to dribbling and shooting as much as he can. You know as I say he's got some pain he's dealing with so it's kind of a tolerance thing um but you know he's got some stiffness in his hand that he's kind of slowly getting through but we'll see how he wakes up tomorrow. Right so that's the crux of it there from Taylor Jenkins.

It's a tolerance thing. How much can he do and play through that pain because it is his right paw. He got punched.

Why are you smiling like that? I thought you were going to go somewhere else with the Ja Morant to Anthony Davis. I thought you were going to get into the whole thing where everybody should have been bandaged up. It's lucky that Anthony Davis was able to get up after that. I don't want to make light of it but it just feels like Anthony Davis every time he falls or does anything you're like oh man hopefully he's not hurt. Well wasn't it Doc Rivers who said just last week that it's an entire season of holding his breath every time Joel Embiid hits the court because he falls so awkwardly and he makes this big crash and he's just a terrible faller. It seems like every time he falls he hurts something.

True but at least that's falling. I feel like Anthony Davis every time he uh turns around you're like all right did you you're okay? You breathed. You breathed. You didn't turn your ankle did you?

Sometime of a lung injury. Yes it is a shame. Although when he's healthy he's still one of the best in the NBA.

That's the shame of it. We never get to see it for long stretches. I'm sure for Laker fans it's got to be very very frustrating. Just as a reference point, Memphis did have to play without Ja for quite a while of course.

Everything that happened when he was away in rehab, the mental health stint but of course coming off these poor decisions that he made like waving a gun in a nightclub on an Insta video. The team has had to play without him for 21 games a season. They're 11 and 10 without Ja but just like I talked about with Giannis, not a long-term recipe for success. The series will get harder even if they would manage to survive without him in say one series. The series will get considerably tougher as they move forward. All right coming up, producer Jay and I are going to split a Dr Pepper.

Yes you can be jealous and you have an hour to go to send your questions for Ask Amy Anything. So on Twitter, ALOL Radio, also on our Facebook page and then Jamar Hamlin speaks again. Really excited to see him. He looks amazing. Excited to hear from him about his future.

You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. Temperatures around 35 degrees here this afternoon as Folt puts his foot into the ball. It's going to be short fielded at the four by Hines. Coming straight up the middle to the 20.

Cuts it back at the 25. He's got an alley down the right sideline to the 40, 50, down to the 40, 35, 30, 20, 15, 10, 5. Touchdown Naive Hines. 96 yards. Run, run as fast as you can. You're not catching Hines.

He's your end zone man. Buffalo on the board with the first play from scrimmage. This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Do you remember that? Do you remember that moment? Week 18 of the regular season and the Buffalo Bills. Week 18. Week 17. There is no week 18 yet, right? Oh no, there is a week 18. 17 games, 18 weeks. Oh dear.

I'm out of practice. It's a long time from the NFL season kicking off but what a phenomenal moment that was. It really lit up not just the Bills fans inside the stadium but Bills mafia all over the region and football fans across the board. If you were late getting to the Bills final regular season game, you missed Naive Hines going 99 yards with the touchdown on the kickoff return but you got to see one later in the game. John Murphy on Bills radio.

Why was it such a big deal? It was the first time that the Bills had returned to the field in the wake of DeMar Hamlin's cardiac arrest which he had to be resuscitated twice in Cincinnati a few days prior. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. I always enjoy hearing from him now. I'm so impressed with the way that he speaks, the way he's so thoughtful and careful but also passionate and kind. It's clear this this young man has a ginormous heart but also at 24 years old he still has a passion for his sport.

I've been on a journey and I've seen you know some of the top professionals across the country and their answers to me were pretty much all the same. They were the same and this event was life-changing but it's not the end of my story so I'm here to announce that I plan on making a comeback to the NFL. Yes DeMar Hamlin will play football again. Don't know about the timetable but there is video of him working out with the defense as part of voluntary OTAs on Tuesday morning and to hear from him to know that he's been cleared and when we say cleared we mean medically cleared. There's no question that he is healthy enough to play football according to Brandon Bean. He's seen three additional specialists most recently on Friday and you know they're all in agreement.

It's not two to one or three to one or anything like that. They're all in lockstep of what this was and that he is cleared, resumed for the next year. He is cleared, resumed full activities just like anyone else who was coming back from an injury or whatever so he's fully cleared. He's here and he is of the mindset.

He's in a great headspace to come back and make his return. My heart is still in it you know. My heart is still in the game.

I love the game. It's something I want to prove to myself not nobody else you know. It's just I just want to show people that that fear is a choice. That you know you can keep going in something without having the answers and without knowing what's at the end of the tunnel or you know you might you might feel anxious. You might feel any type of way you know but you just keep putting that right foot in front of the left one. There's so much in that clip from DeMar Hamlin that I want to pick apart.

We might even listen to it again here on After Hours CBS Sports Radio. First of all, it strikes me that he had cardiac arrest because his heart stopped. So think about it. The heart is a physical muscle. It pumps the blood throughout our bodies. Without it, it can only stop for so long before we are dead. We cannot live without our physical heart pumping blood. But when he speaks about heart, in this cut he's talking about the figurative heart that we associate with our emotions. That we associate with our greatest victories, our greatest triumphs, but also our most painful failures and defeats and losses and adversities. I've said this a lot over the last year and I know I'm not alone in this.

You all, I'm sure, feel the same way or have said this before. I miss my Grammy Helen so much my heart hurts, but the heart can't actually hurt in that way. The heart can hurt as a muscle. It can be bruised, but the heart we're talking about is the one that we believe houses. Is the one that we believe houses our love, our joy, our peace, but it also houses our pain, our disappointment, our grief. So it just fascinates me the dichotomy between the actual heart of DeMar Hamlin that stopped working, which he talked about earlier.

In fact, we'll listen to it. And then the heart that he's talking about that includes his passion and that draws him back to football. The diagnosis of pretty much what happened to me was basically commodio cordis. It's a direct blow at a specific point in your heartbeat that causes cardiac arrest. And five to seven seconds later, you fall out.

And that's pretty much what everyone's seen January 2nd of this year. So that's his heart, his heart muscle that takes a direct hit. It's a rare, in fact, according to the doctors and some of the research, it's extremely rare occurrence.

All of the factors have to be exactly right. But that's what they concluded. The doctors concluded that it was a very specific type of cardiac arrest, extremely rare consequence of blunt force trauma to the heart that happens at exactly the wrong time in the heart rhythm, causing the heart to stop beating effectively. That comes from the American Heart Association. But that's not the heart that Damar Hamlin is referring to when he talks about wanting to play the game that he loves. My heart is still in it. You know, my heart is still in the game.

I love the game. It's something I want to prove to myself, not nobody else. You know, it's just I just want to show people that that fear is a choice that, you know, you can keep going as something without having the answers and without knowing what's at the end of the tunnel or, you know, you might feel anxious, you might feel any type of way, you know, but you just keep putting that right foot in front of the left one. I appreciate the wisdom of this young man and boy has he been through it. And right now I'm facing some of that uncertainty and don't have all the answers about a couple of situations in my personal life. And so the wisdom that comes from Damar, you can move forward, you can have your whole heart into what you're doing, even if you don't know what's around the next bend.

There was also another clip in which he says, I've lost people. I know what that pain feels like to lose people you love. I'm so glad that my people don't have to miss me and grieve me. Not to sound cliche, man, but the wild moment is every day just being able to wake up and just take deep breaths and live a peaceful life, to have a family, to have people around me that love me and that care about me. And for those people to still have me in their lives, you know, they almost lost me.

Like I died on national TV in front of the whole world, you know what I mean? That right there is just the biggest blessing of it all is for me to still have my people and my people still to have me. Good to hear from Damar. He smiled, but as I say, he's very thoughtful. He's obviously put a lot of thought into this. It's been his life for the last three and a half months. According to the Buffalo Bills, they're going to provide all the support that he could possibly need in terms of mental health as he makes this journey. Don't know if there'll be fear associated with it. Maybe when it comes to taking hits, but apparently a specialist told Damar Hamlin that returning to football would actually be good for his mental health. And I can see that. I agree with that. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio.