The NFL canceled the postponed Bills-Bengals game earlier Monday night. The league also planned to vote on Friday with two amendments to the AFC qualifiers on the table.
While the NFL’s cancellation decision won’t affect the teams that make the playoffs, it could affect the seeding, which is why the league has come up with several potential rule changes to eliminate the competitive disparities that would arise from not playing the game.
Under the proposal to be voted on by the owners, the AFC Championship could become a neutral site game if any of the following three scenarios are met:
- Scenario 1: If Buffalo and Kansas City or both win in Week 18, the Buffalo vs. Kansas City championship game will be at a neutral site.
- Scenario 2: If the Bills and Chiefs lose in Week 18 and Baltimore wins or gets ties to the Bengals, the Buffalo vs Kansas City championship game will be at a neutral site.
- Scenario 3: If Buffalo and Kansas City both lose and Cincinnati beats Baltimore, it will be a Bills or Bengals championship game against the Chiefs at a neutral site.
The NFL is also giving the Ravens a chance to host a wild card game even though Baltimore can’t mathematically win an AFC North title. Even if the Ravens beat the Bengals on Sunday, that would put them 11-6, which would still be half a game behind the Cincinnati team, which would finish 11-5 with a loss.
Under this scenario, the Ravens would not win the division even though they swept the Bengals and had a better division record. To fix this problem, the suggestion on the table is that the NFL would flip a coin to see who hosts a Ravens-Bengals wild-card game if:
1. The Ravens beat the Bengals on Sunday, and…
2. If the two teams are scheduled to play each other in a wild card round.
The AFC Championship proposal and the Ravens’ proposal will be voted on Friday.
“When we looked at the football schedule, our principles were to reduce disruptions throughout the league and reduce competitive inequality,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said of why the league made these two decisions. “I realize that no solution is perfect. However, the proposal we ask the owner to consider addresses the most important potential just issues created by the difficult, but necessary, decision not to play the game under these exceptional circumstances.”
The circumstances that Gödel refers to are the ones that relate to Hamelin’s devastation. The Bills and Bengals played nearly nine minutes Monday night before the game was halted after the Bills safely went into cardiac arrest on the court. After receiving CPR, Hamlin was She was taken by ambulance to the University of Cincinnati Medical CenterHe was in critical condition for the past three days.
The only thing on the NFL’s mind these past 72 hours is Hamlin’s health, which has improved significantly over the past 24 hours. Two members of Hamelin’s medical team Held a press conference on Thursday and revealed Not only does he move his arms and legs, but he also manages to communicate through writing with friends and family. (he Until he asks who won the Bills Bengals game While communicating with a nurse on a Wednesday night).
“This has been a very difficult week,” Goodell said in a statement. “We continue to focus on Dummar Hamelin’s recovery and are encouraged by the improvements in his condition as well as the tremendous outpouring of support and care for Dummar and his family from across the country.”
With Hamlin’s health improving, the NFL finally sat down to see what the next move should be with the Bills-Bengals game. With that out of the way, the next step for the league will now come on Friday when the league votes whether to implement these two extraordinary measures in the playoffs.
With the cancellation, it would be the first time since 1935 that every NFL team did not play the same number of games.