Professional football’s hypnotic appeal endures to this day, perhaps best illustrated in the inimitable way it romanticizes violence, somehow able to turn bones breaking on the frozen tundra into a Broadway musical.

“Through the chill of December the early winter moans, but it's that January wind that rattles old bones,” were the words of John Facenda, the old narrator of NFL Films, often called “The Voice of God.”

But then came Monday night when flowery romanticism became abrupt reality. The violence we crave, as we root for our actual teams, fantasy teams or gambling interests, the gladiator mindset we watch while comfy and cozy around the fire, imperiled the life of a young man named Damar Hamlin.

Hamlin, 24, an affable guy who plays for the Buffalo Bills, delivered a hit to Cincinnati’s Tee Higgins. Hamlin shot up off the ground after delivering the wallop, as we are so accustomed to seeing, every day every game. And then he collapsed. And then for the following tenuous minutes, he was administered CPR, while looks of sadness, shock and horror engulfed everyone else on the field.

Per reports, Hamlin went into cardiac arrest. Bills’ spokespersons said Hamlin’s heartbeat was restored by medical personnel on the field before he was loaded into an ambulance and taken to the hospital, where he remains in critical condition.

Nobody else framed the moment better than ESPN’s Ryan Clark, a former NFL cornerback who suffered a serious health scare during his playing days, a splenic infarction after a game in 2007 that required the removal of his spleen and gallbladder — and rendered him in the hospital for a month where he lost 40 pounds and suffered high fevers during his stay.

The words of Ryan Clark: “It's about a young man living his dream that a few hours ago was getting ready to play the biggest game of his NFL career. And there's probably nowhere else in the world he wanted to be.

“We use the cliches, ‘I'm ready to die for this. I'm willing to give my life for this. It's time to go to war.’ And I think sometimes we forget that part of living his dream is putting his life at risk. And tonight, we got to see a side of football that is extremely ugly, a side of football that no one ever wants to see or never wants to admit exists.

“This isn't about a football player. This is about a human. This is about a brother, this is about a son. This is about a friend. I have dealt with this before. And I watched my teammates for days, come to my hospital room and just cry. I had them call me and tell me that they didn't think I was going to make it.

“So the next time we get upset at our favorite fantasy player, or we're upset that the guy on our team doesn't make the play and that we're saying he's worthless and we're saying ‘you get to make all this money’ … we should remember that these men are putting their lives on the line to live their dream. And tonight Damar Hamlin’s dream became a nightmare for not only himself but his family and his entire team.”

A word on Clark and the rest of the ESPN team of Scott Van Pelt, Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, Lisa Salters, Suzy Kolber, Booger McFarland and Adam Schefter: Their on-air grace Monday night in an impossible situation should never be forgotten. True pros, all.

Clark somehow found the words to illustrate Damar Hamlin in the bigger picture, sustaining Oscar Wilde’s line, “we look to the dramatist to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to romance.”

Hamlin turned the way we romance football into sobering realism. And it should give all of us pause.

Heck, it was barely 24 hours earlier that I was as guilty as anybody else. The Giants, playing for a playoff spot, weren’t on local television, prompting a dozen of us to gather at the oasis known as the Birdseye to watch the biggest game for our team in years.

We wore (largely outdated) Giants garb, yelled at the TV, made each other laugh, swore, stomped, cheered, bonded and celebrated. We reveled in our team and in this once-a-week sport that is completely captivating. There’s a reason the late, great Bill Mignault at Ledyard High called football “a narcotic.” This was it.

And then a night later, Damar Hamlin turned romance into realism.

I’d like to think it’s going to change the way I watch football. And if it doesn’t, I hope there’s someone in the room to remind me there’s a better way.

Turns out John Facenda was right after all. One of his other immortal lines rings truer today:

“Professional football in America is a special game, a unique game … It is a rare game. The men who play it make it so,” Facenda said. “All of them are fearless. All of them are strong, quick. And all of them are part of a story that began long ago. A story written by men who found, in the sport, a demanding measure for their own courage and ability.”

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro