The NFL has canceled the Bills-Bengals game that was previously postponed on Monday night after Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest and was sent to a local hospital. The league also planned a vote Friday with two adjustments for the AFC playoffs on the table, but not everybody is happy about this.
While the NFL’s cancellation decision will not impact which teams make the playoffs, it may impact seedings.
NFL owners are meeting today to vote on a neutral site for the AFC Championship Game. This would take place if the game involves the Bills and/or Bengals. The bigger issue will be that a site for a potential Bengals-Ravens game in the Wild Card round should be decided by a coin flip.
One AFC North team is not happy about this. According to Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports, the Bengals are trying to whip up “no” votes from fellow NFL owners.
CBS Sports provided the current proposal regarding a Bengals-Ravens playoff game:
“If the 10-6 Ravens beat the 11-4 Bengals on Sunday, a scenario exists where the Ravens are the No. 6 seed and the Bengals are the No. 3 seed. In any other year that seeding should mean the game would be played in Cincinnati. But Baltimore would have won both games in the season series, and since the Bengals didn’t play an equal number of games, the league has proposed that a coin flip would decide where that playoff game would take place.”
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If the Bengals want to avoid this, then they need to defeat the Ravens on Sunday, which should be easier since Lamar Jackson will not be playing.
Even if the Ravens win on Sunday against the Bengals, that would put them at 11-6, which would still be a half game behind the Cincinnati, who would finish 11-5 with a loss.
The only thing on the NFL’s mind over the past 72 hours has been the health of Hamlin, which has improved remarkably over the past 24 hours.
