As time froze and the severity of the scene was realized, it became apparent that football on this night no longer mattered.
Not in a preseason game that had suddenly lost all meaning. Not when you’ve just spent 20 minutes on a knee, tears streaming, scouring the surrounding area for signs of hope. Not when all you can do is watch as one of your own suffers, leaving you to confront the harsh reality of how fragile this all is.
So, when Lions safety Morice Norris left the game in an ambulance and players watched his night come to an abrupt end, the Atlanta Falcons and Detroit Lions took matters into their own hands and ended theirs, too.
“There’s not a lot of times that happens,” Falcons head coach Raheem Morris said. “I can’t sit here and tell you I have been through a lot of those or seen a lot of those. I don’t think any of us have. That was the moment, the decision. It was the right thing for (both) football teams.”
Friday night’s preseason game between the Falcons and Lions took an unexpected turn in the fourth quarter of a 17-10 contest. On the first play of the final period, Norris charged downhill from his safety position, attempting to tackle Falcons RB Nathan Carter on a routine run up the middle. But Norris’ head collided with Carter’s leg. Norris was motionless on the field. Athletic trainers rushed to his aid. Lions head coach Dan Campbell gathered members of his team, still visibly shaken, together for a few words of encouragement. Players from both teams took a knee as Norris lingered — then lingered some more.
Eventually, an ambulance was called. Morris was carefully placed onto a stretcher — shown blinking on the broadcast before he was loaded into the back of the vehicle. The ambulance transported him to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta for further evaluation, with his mother close behind. Norris, 24, a promising second-year safety fighting to make the roster, had been a bright spot on the second-team defense in training camp. A 2024 UDFA out of Fresno State, Norris slowly gained the trust of the coaching staff as his rookie season progressed, even earning some defensive snaps. He’s instinctive, charges downhill from the safety position with a plan of attack and has made a name for himself with his physicality — something this coaching staff holds in high regard.
Per an update provided by the Lions late Friday evening, Morris is in stable condition and has feeling and movement in all his extremities. He remained in Atlanta overnight for observation. But it’s good news for a situation that looked a lot worse in the moment.
“He’s breathing, he’s talking,” Campbell said of Norris after the game. “That’s good. He’s got some movement. Now, they’re running more tests.”
Those positive updates offered some peace of mind amid a traumatic situation. The longer he was tended to, the more uneasy you felt. Injuries are part of the sport, but when they look like this, the machismo so heavily ingrained in this game takes a back seat to decency and humanity.
That’s what these head coaches displayed, with their teams watching.
After nearly 15 minutes of support for Norris and waiting for further instructions, the game would eventually resume. The two teams took the field again. However, Morris and Campbell, after a brief conversation, had other plans for how the rest of the contest would unfold.
What followed was some shrewd maneuvering to accelerate the game’s end. The Falcons snapped the ball to avoid a delay of game penalty with roughly 14:50 to go, but no action ensued. QB Emery Jones received the snap and stood with the ball in his hands for a few minutes of play, with all other players standing nearby. Cameras cut to Campbell and Morris, who decided minutes earlier that this is how their teams would proceed if the show must, in fact, go on.
With less than 13 minutes to go, Lions and Falcons players gathered in a circle near midfield — arms locked, ball still in Jones’ hands — and said a prayer as the clock continued winding down. A moment of unity, properly contextualized by play-by-play announcer Jason Benetti on the Detroit-area broadcast.
The scene in Atlanta after Lions DB Morice Norris left the game in an ambulance. Clock continues to run. pic.twitter.com/DrSNy0uTrY
— Colton Pouncy (@colton_pouncy) August 9, 2025
“It is one of the beautiful reminders of how we are all connected in life …” Benetti said on the broadcast. “No matter what color you’re wearing, no matter what helmet you’re wearing, no matter what belief you have, somebody’s down and hurt. You don’t know about them. You take care of your heart and their heart and everybody’s heart in the building and beyond — and the Lions and Falcons have given everybody a lesson tonight in humanity.”
“It’s just an eye-opener,” Campbell said. “It hits. It hits a little different and it puts things in perspective. I tell you what, man, it’s a violent game. We love it, but when stuff like this happens, the silver lining is the brotherhood. To see all those guys, from that team, our team kind of come together and everybody is thinking about another player, it just means a lot.”
It was a workaround to ensure this game would end without further complications. This took place from 14:50 to 6:31 — roughly eight and half minutes of time off the board before an official said New York had suspended play and called the game.
The aftermath of Friday evening was unlike anything we’ve seen. The NFL seemed destined to finish out a game that had no business resuming given the uncertainty of the situation. The Athletic reached out to the league for clarity on why play wasn’t suspended earlier, considering the potential severity of the situation. You didn’t need to be in Atlanta to see players were shaken by the injury in real-time, struggling to proceed.
“It’s just awful,” said Lions quarterback Kyle Allen. “You sign up for football, you understand risk and putting your body on the line, but you never think something like that is going to happen.”
“Everybody on the sideline was just standing there and the clock continued to go,” Falcons WR Casey Washington said after the game. “It was tough. All the players were affected by it. We have been playing this game since the age of 5 and to see something like that is tough to see, it’s emotional.”
It took the head coaches of these teams coming together to collectively prioritize common sense and the mental well-being of their players above all else. Perhaps the traumatic events of Damar Hamlin’s injury remain fresh on the minds of players and coaches when play stops like it did Friday night. Maybe it’s the emotional intelligence of coaches like Morris and Campbell, identifying a problem and coming up with a resolution for their players.
“Raheem Morris is a class act,” Campbell said. “We agreed that it just didn’t feel right to finish that game. That man is a class act, always has been.”
“It was that simple,” Morris said.
It should always be. They deserve credit for their swift action and leadership, as time froze around them.
(Photo: Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)
