Moore: How will we remember Damar Hamlin in 50 years?

Darryl Stingley. Mike Utley. Ryan Shazier.

Every generation has a moment where a player suffers a life-altering catastrophe on the field, and we all get it: Football is brutal; every snap could quite literally be a player’s last.

But what are we going to do to remember Damar Hamlin?

I’m writing this from the perspective of a guy who rooted for the Detroit Lions for decades but never once heard of Chuck Hughes.

Hughes had a heart attack on the field and died in 1971, and I’d never heard of him until Wednesday.

We’re talking decades of games, newspaper articles, magazine articles, books and conversations with people old enough to remember it happening and never once, never, not ever, had I heard of Chuck Hughes.

We’re talking days of coverage of Hamlin’s collapse from every outlet news imaginable, and it took a sidenote conversation from a guy in politics — POLITICS! — to make me look it up.

The Detroit Free Press, the paper that helped foster my love of sports and of sports journalism, put Hughes on the front page back when it happened. It was the first time, and thankfully the last time, a player died on the field in the NFL.

“Lions’ Chuck Hughes Dies After Collapse During Game,” the headline read.

“Heart Attack Is Suspected,” the subhead stated.

There was a 50^th-anniversary story written for the paper by an excellent freelancer, Bill Dow, who spoke to former Lions quarterback Greg Landry, who said: “Chuck ran great routes and had great hands, but what we all remember most about him was the quality of the person and how well-liked he was by everyone. He was always upbeat and never down and was someone you always wanted to associate with.”

Except Landry was wrong. “We all” don’t remember him.

Not nearly enough has been done to make sure “we all” remember him.

Are we going to let that happen to Hamlin, too?

Somers:Damar Hamlin's health emergency brought out the best in football fans

Since Hamlin went down on Monday night, acclaimed sports biographer Jeff Pearlman made a similar point to my own, writing for CNN.

“Odds are, you’ve never seen the photograph,” he wrote.

“I can’t help,” he wrote later, “but think about Hughes and football and what the NFL wants us to see (and not see).”

Hamlin’s collapse has become something that’s hard for anyone to see. If you’re interested, you have to search for it. The networks aren’t showing it on an endless loop the way they do so many events that happen on the field.

Read more: Cardinals players react to in-game medical emergency involving Bills' Damar Hamlin

In that way, it’s similar to war coverage, where mainstream publications refuse to show the carnage.

And in this case, we’re not even talking about Hamiln, anymore.

Fox Sports analyst Skip Bayless hit send on a now-infamous tweet that happened in real-time as the world awaited updates on Hamlin’s condition: “no doubt the NFL is considering postponing the rest of this game — but how? This late in the season, a game of this magnitude is crucial to the regular-season outcome … which suddenly seems so irrelevant.”

It has been viewed 164 million times, and based on much of the reaction from others in Bayless’ profession, 164 million people thought it was calloused.

Back when Hughes died, the game resumed.

No one remembers who won.

The NFL did the right thing to stop the Bengals-Bills game. They should just declare it a tie and be done with it.

A reporter for NBC News, Elizabeth Chuck, got in touch with Hughes’ widow, Sharon, and spoke to her about Hamlin.

“Can you imagine how his mother felt?” Sharon Hughes said. “It’s a horrifying feeling, and, well, I just felt so sorry for the whole family.”

Great point.

Can you imagine how Sharon Hughes must feel?

It’s been 50 years, and when was the last time anybody called her?

And in another 50 years, will anybody remember what happened on Monday night?

Darryl Stingley was paralyzed on the field. Same with Utley and Shazier.

What do we do to remember them?

And what does it say about us if we don’t do enough?

What will it say about us if we don’t do more for Hamlin and his family?

We all get it: Football is brutal; every snap could quite literally be a player's last.

But what can we, those of us who love the game and the young men who play it, do to show our appreciation for their risk? To let them know that they won’t ever be forgotten? To make sure there’s never another Chuck Hughes?

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Moore: How will we remember Damar Hamlin in 50 years?