Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin said Wednesday that he never intended to offend anyone by attending the Super Bowl by wearing a jacket that critics deemed an offensive depiction of Jesus.
“After talking to my parents, I understand how my coat may offend some people,” Hamlin wrote in a note posted to his Twitter account. “It was never my intention to hurt or disrespect anyone, the coat is abstract art to me.”
Hamlin closed his two-post thread by saying that he would continue to learn from the situation: “My faith and relationship with God is not tied to symbolic images.”
A second-year player recovering after being resuscitated on the field after going into cardiac arrest during a game in Cincinnati six weeks ago, pictured sitting in the NFL wearing a Kanye West Eternal Saint Blue varsity jacket during pregame ceremonies There was a commotion to leave. Commissioner Roger Goodell’s box at the Super Bowl in Arizona on Sunday.
The back of the jacket featured an abstract depiction of Jesus on the cross below the word “Eternal”. The front featured an abstract depiction of Jesus’ face and appears to reference a verse in the Bible that reads: “Without end or beginning there is no day and no night.”
Among the critics was former NFL running back Adrian Peterson, who called the jackets “blasphemy” on Monday.
A day later, Peterson wrote in an Instagram post that he had cleared the air with Hamlin.
Peterson wrote, “After speaking with Damar, my understanding is that this did not come with ill intent.” “I’m sorry to have offended you, I just felt bad at that moment, as a person who loves and respects our Lord and Saviour.”
Hamlin, who received the NFLPA’s Alan Page Community Award last week, attended a pregame ceremony in which the NFL honored the Bills and Bengals training and medical staff and first responders who treated the 24-year-old from the Pittsburgh area on the field, and staff at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where he spent about a week recovering.