The NFL cancelled the Buffalo Bills-Cincinnati Bengals game on Monday after 24-year-old safety Damar Hamlin experienced a terrifying heart collapse on the field.
Hamlin remains in a Cincinnati ICU.
The NFL also delayed the playoffs by a week in a statement released Thursday night.
The Bills tweeted on Thursday that second-year defensive safety Hamlin "demonstrated that he appears to be neurologically intact"
while his lungs "continue to heal and he is making steady progress."
Kaiir Elam, Hamlin's teammate, said he was "doing better, awake and showing more indications of improvement" on Thursday morning.
but doctors said he was still "critically ill" in a Cincinnati ICU.
Dr. Timothy Pritts claimed Hamlin wrote to medical staff inquiring whether the Bills won the game, to which they replied, “you won the game of life.”
Colts safety “I know he could hear me,” said Rodney Thomas II, Hamlin's former high school teammate, who visited him at the hospital.
Before Hamlin can be freed, he must breathe on his own and move his hands and feet, according to University of Cincinnati doctors.
The best outcome is for him to return to “who he was before this all happened.”