My experience with old VHS tapes is that the gears inside the tape (on the reels, can 'lock-up').
On the underside of the tape, in the center, above the reels near the flip door that exposes the tape when it's installed in the recorder, you will see a small 'hole' .
When the tape is installed, a pin inside the recorder pushes up through that hole, and releases the tape reel stop gears, so that the tape will move when the recorder function to play, fast-forward, or reverse is activated.
The little hole is a spring-loaded flip mechanical switch, that engages the 'stop' lever inside the tape, or disengages it when the tape is installed inside the recorder.
It may have broken (the little plastic parts), but you can stick a small diameter probe (like a thick diameter paper clip that has been unfolded, or some other strong object that's the right size), and manually 'unlock' that gear-stop mechanism. I'd push the probe up into the hole and move one of the reels with my fingers to get it moving past the engaged gear-stop, then try to play the tape again.
If it's broken, (and it probably is since this happened to you), it may not solve the problem. But at least you'll know what the problem is. (The tape itself, not the player).
My solution with this problem on tapes I wanted to keep, was to open the VHS cassette housing on some other tape that I didn't want, and swap the entire two-reel tape from the tape I wanted to keep, into the housing of the replacement, so that I'd have a functioning cassette. I don't know if you're interested in that fix, but if you are, be aware
that there are a couple of springs (The flip door of the cassette, and the gear-lock mechanism) that you need to be careful of, so that they don't fly out and get lost.
Excuse the long post, but I think the above is the problem you're seeing, and I wanted you to understand it.