The National Football League canceled the game between the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals that was postponed after a harrowing injury to Damar Hamlin, and devised a plan to avert chaos in its fast-approaching playoffs.
(Bloomberg) — The National Football League canceled the game between the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals that was postponed after a harrowing injury to Damar Hamlin, and devised a plan to avert chaos in its fast-approaching playoffs.
The league decided to scrap the game because it won’t affect which teams qualify for the post-season and because doing so before the final week of the regular season allows for transparency around playoff scenarios, the NFL said in a statement late Thursday. It also acknowledged that the decision “creates potential competitive inequities in certain playoff scenarios.”
A plan recommended by Commissioner Roger Goodell was approved by the NFL competition committee and will be considered Friday by the 32 teams in a special league meeting, according to the statement.
The first part of the plan stipulates that the American Football Conference Championship Game — where the winner advances to the Super Bowl — will be played at a neutral location if both teams could have been the No. 1 seed had the Bills and Bengals finished their match-up.
As it stands, the Bills are 12-3, the Bengals are 11-4 and the Kansas City Chiefs are 13-3. That means if Buffalo and Kansas City both won or tied — and then both advanced to the AFC Championship — it would be held at a neutral site. The same would go for if both teams lost their final regular-season contest, but Cincinnati was also defeated or tied.
If the Bills and Chiefs both lose, while the Bengals win, then an AFC Championship featuring Kansas City and either Buffalo or Cincinnati would be at a neutral site.
There’s one other wrinkle for the league to consider. If the Baltimore Ravens (10-6) beat the Bengals this weekend for the second time this year, they still won’t have a better winning percentage over 17 games than Cincinnati over 16 games.
The NFL’s solution, should they be matched up in a Wild Card game: a coin flip to determine the venue.
“As we considered the football schedule, our principles have been to limit disruption across the league and minimize competitive inequities,” Goodell said in the statement. “I recognize that there is no perfect solution. The proposal we are asking the ownership to consider, however, addresses the most significant potential equitable issues created by the difficult, but necessary, decision not to play the game under these extraordinary circumstances.”
Hamlin, 24, remains in critical condition at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. The Bills said Thursday that he has shown “remarkable improvement” and was able to communicate through writing. He asked his doctors who won Monday night’s game, according to the team.
–With assistance from Janine Phakdeetham.
(Updates throughout.)
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