The games will go on, because they always do. The NFL playoffs will go on, because there is a Super Bowl to play.

But our agonizing human vigil continues following the horrifying Monday night when Damar Hamlin collapsed on Paycor Field in Cincinnati, when no one could be certain whether he would make it out of critical condition alive at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

And we still don’t know whether he can, or will.

And what we also cannot know is how long it will take for his Bills teammates and coaches, and Bengals players and coaches who experienced the same shock and fear that their opponents experienced, not to mention for the entire 32-team brotherhood of the NFL, to be emotionally and psychologically ready when the games go on.

So what we do know is that football doesn’t matter on this Wednesday any more than it did at 8:55 on Monday night when Damar Hamlin, 24 years old, collapsed from cardiac arrest and could not breathe on his own and fans and players in every sport cried and everyone prayed. And should keep on praying.

Because this was a chilling, harrowing, terrifying, sobering night when Damar Hamlin wasn’t only the son of the woman who rushed down from the stands where she was watching him living out his childhood dream to be by his side on the desperate ambulance ride to try to save him.

Damar Hamlin was Everyone’s Son.

America’s Son.

It has left a pall over all of the sports world during a timeout no one could have fathomed.

“Miracle” was a popular sports movie about the late Herb Brooks and the gold medal-winning USA hockey team at Lake Placid. And we talk about miracles on all the playing fields all the time. It is the charm and beauty of sports competition.

Bills safety Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest during “Monday Night Football” against the Bengals. Follow the New York Post’s live coverage for the latest news and updates on his condition.

We need one now. This is the miracle we need now.

A real-life Hail Mary.

I was in the press box at the Meadowlands on Nov. 29, 1992, when a young Jets defensive end named Dennis Byrd’s head collided with the chest of teammate Scott Mersereau while rushing quarterback Dave Krieg and Byrd couldn’t get up. Somehow, Byrd beat back the grim possibility of being a lifelong quadriplegic and wrote one of the most inspirational stories we have witnessed in sports, or anywhere. The book and the movie were titled “Rise and Walk.”

A Bills tight end named Kevin Everett suffered a life-threatening cervical spine injury on Week 1 of the 2007 season at Ralph Wilson Stadium making a tackle on Broncos kick returner Domenik Hixon. He walked out onto the field triumphantly three months later at the regular-season home finale.

Darryl Stingley wasn’t as fortunate. A violent 1978 preseason collision with Raiders safety Jack Tatum ended the Patriots receiver’s career at 26 and left him a quadriplegic. His grandson, cornerback Derek Stingley Jr., was the third pick of the 2022 NFL Draft by the Texans.

Chuck Hughes was a receiver for the Detroit Lions who died on the field from a heart attack on Oct. 24, 1971. Hank Gathers was a Loyola Marymount basketball player with a condition known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy who collapsed on a court on March 4, 1990, and died.

Damar Hamlin is the latest reminder no one wanted that tragedy can rear its ugly head at any time for anyone.

In the anxiety-wracked hours since Damar Hamlin went down, we have learned about how he made it out of the mean bullet-ridden streets of McKees Rocks, Pa., how he endured the trauma of coping with an incarcerated father, how he started his The Chasing Ms Foundation to purchase toys for children affected by the pandemic in his hometown … over $3.5 million had been raised for his charity from fans as of Tuesday morning.

One play can be your last play. One minute you can be one of the fittest athletes in professional sports … and the next minute you can be fighting for your life.

I have been on NFL sidelines and witnessed the frightening collisions between 300-pound men that can end careers, that have left too many with broken bones and a severely diminished quality of life they never dreamed could one day be theirs. Year after year, it seems, we mourn the poor victims of head trauma who succumb to CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy).

No matter how much safer you try to make a violent game, there are no guarantees that it can be safe enough for everyone. And the sad irony is that after all the efforts to legislate targeting an opponent out of the game, the NFL has seen many more vicious collisions than the one that Damar Hamlin endured when Bengals receiver Tee Higgins lowered his head and led with his right shoulder into the defender’s chest.

Many of them consider themselves gladiators lucky to play a game they have dreamed about and fell in love with from the first time they touched a football, and they all understand the risks. But when you are young and feel indestructible, you refuse to believe it can happen to you.

Damar Hamlin forces all of them — most of them for the first time — to confront their own mortality.

We should be thankful for the emergency care people who did what they are trained to do when they administered CPR and restored his heartbeat amid tears that had been cheers in the most desperate hour of Damar Hamlin’s life.

“There’s no game plan for this,” former Jets head coach Herm Edwards said on ESPN.

The game can give you fame and fortune and joy.

It can also give you and your loved ones pain and sorrow.

The NFL will go on with its Week 18 schedule, without anyone knowing what kind of impact Damar Hamlin will have on its shaken players. The Bills-Bengals game won’t be played this week, nor should it. Absolutely not now.

Life will go on. It always does.

Keep praying that it goes on for America’s Son, Damar Hamlin.