PHILADELPHIA — It is the little things we take for granted, the holding of a life in one’s hand, breathing on your own, which we feared Damar Hamlin might never be able to do again.

Then painstakingly slowly, but surely, as so many of us prayed to keep hope alive, to keep a human angel alive, Damar Hamlin has begun to breathe on his own again, and talk again, and become everyone’s Miracle Man.

There have been so many heroes — from the first responders who rescued him from cardiac arrest, to the medical men and sports psychologists in charge of mental health, to the team chaplain whose job it has been to soothe the restless souls of young men who have forever dreamed of becoming one of Sunday’s heroes, to the intensive care doctors and nurses at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, to Bills coach Sean McDermott and his players, to the profile-in-courage of a mother who rode in the ambulance by her fallen son’s side to the hospital and refused to surrender any more than he did.

So now, for three hours on Sunday, between those white lines at the Linc from 4:25 p.m. until around 7:25 p.m., it might not be as difficult for the New York Football Giants — not to mention the 31 other teams, but especially the Buffalo Bills — to try to keep Damar Hamlin in the deepest recesses of their mind, if only because of the violent business they’ve chosen, of the life they’ve chosen.

Now, it might not be as difficult for those players to search for an answer to daunting questions that had been haunting many of them when the news about Hamlin was at its grimmest and most frightening:

Is it still too soon for us to be remorseless football players? Is it still too soon for us to be bullies? Is it still too soon for us to be merchants of punishment in a game of blocking and tackling and roughing the passer and personal fouls, a game that demands that “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”?

“If you’re thinking about something other than blocking Linval Joseph or Fletcher Cox, you’re gonna get your butt whupped,” Giants center Jon Feliciano, formerly with the Bills, told The Post. “It’s always been easy for me to when you cross the white lines. I’m not good enough to be thinking about other things than getting my job done. I gotta be completely locked in. It also doesn’t help my team if I’m not completely locked in.”

I asked Feliciano if he was worried that any teammates might be affected by what befell Hamlin between the white lines.

“No, not really,” he said. “I think we’re all professionals, and I think it helps that he’s doing better.

“I don’t know how that all works medically wise, but hopefully by that time on Sunday, he’s doing even better.”

It’s not as if the stakes aren’t high: The Eagles will clinch the NFC’s No. 1 seed and home-field advantage in the playoffs with a win. The Giants need to stay as healthy as possible and take a modicum of momentum and swag into their road wild-card playoff game next weekend.

“You understand the risks, but it’s not something you see all the time, I think that’s part of why it’s so shocking,” Daniel Jones said. “But I think when we’re out there, we’ll focus on playing the game and playing as well as we can.”

It may well be, of course, that the mere sight of the Eagles will help the Giants focus with laser precision on the task at hand, and the mere sight of the Giants will similarly help the Eagles.

“I think it’s never easy when you witness something like that,” Kayvon Thibodeaux told The Post. “Not just witness it on a personal level, witness it as a team, witness it as a community, witness it as a society. It’ll definitely be hard to continue, but that’s the challenge. That’s kind of where we find our love for the game and our passion. It becomes an outlet for us to try to keep that negativity out of our minds and go do what we love.”

Go do what Damar Hamlin loved.

Jones, Saquon Barkley, Andrew Thomas, Dexter Lawrence and Julian Love, among others, might be able to summon their empathy for Damar Hamlin long before 7:25 p.m., should Brian Daboll decide it is in the best interest of his team to pull them earlier than Tom Coughlin might have under these or other circumstances … or not play some of them at all. As in Davis Webb handing off to Matt Breida and Gary Brightwell. Jalen Hurts (shoulder) has missed the past two games, and if he is held out, Gardner Minshew will be in charge of keeping the Eagles from possibly falling to the No. 5 seed and a road game against Tom Brady and the Buccaneers.

Jalen Hurts (shoulder) has missed the past two games but is expected to start, with a loss dropping the Eagles to the No. 5 seed and a road game against Tom Brady and the Buccaneers.

But though they are out there between those white lines, the idea of ruining the Eagles’ grand ambitions and hushing “Fly, Eagles, fly” from their venomous fans will serve as motivation for the Giants.

“It’s an NFC East rival opponent, that’s what we’re planning to do, so hopefully we can do that,” Thomas said.

Or perhaps the memory of that 48-22 humiliation in Week 14 at MetLife Stadium will enable the Giants to keep the main thing the main thing.

“Getting an ass-kicking,” Feliciano said. “We’d like to get that back and go into the playoffs the right way.”

Or perhaps, for some, the memory of former Eagles head coach Doug Pederson pulling Hurts in favor of Nate Sudfeld with his team down three points entering the fourth quarter in the 2020 regular-season finale against Washington. The Eagles lost, giving Washington the NFC East title and eliminating the 6-10 Joe Judge Giants.

“We didn’t earn the right to go there, so we can’t be frustrated at what the coaching staff did, ’cause they’re doing what’s best for their team,” Thomas said.

From 4:25 p.m. to 7:25 p.m., the Giants will play a football game. But before it begins, and after it ends, all of them will be thinking long and hard about Damar Hamlin, and hopefully all of them will be thinking long and hard about what it means to be healthy and alive.