The only thing that matters in the aftermath of this week’s events is the health and progress of Damar Hamlin. Fortunately, he is making “substantial” progress.
And if the NFL is intent on playing the Week 18 schedule as planned, and it appears it is, the league has some big – potentially season-altering – decisions in front of them.
The Bills-Bengals game that was suspended Monday night reportedly is on track to be declared a no-contest. Going into that game, the Bills were the No. 2 seed in the AFC and the Bengals were No. 3, and both had a path to the No. 1 seed in the conference.
But if the game is called off, that takes the Bengals out of the running for the top seed. The Bills, who are just one game back of the Chiefs and hold the tiebreaker, still could get that spot in Week 18.
A few scenarios have been kicked around. One gaining “real traction” is seeding teams by winning percentage, then playing at a neutral site for the conference championship if the game involves one of the three teams impacted by the no contest. Another scenario, albeit one that seems more unlikely, is adding an eighth team to the postseason from each conference, which would eliminate the first-round bye.
Whatever gets decided, there are going to be teams other than the Bengals and Bills impacted. Appearing on 610 Sports' "The Drive," ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio outlined why the Chiefs are in a tough position.
“The Chiefs are in a horrible spot here,” Florio said. “Because it paints whatever they accomplish – if they do end up the No. 1 seed, if they end up with the bye week, if they end up with home field advantage throughout the playoffs, if they barely beat the Bills again, like last year in that game – people are going to want to put an asterisk on it. And that’s not fair to the Chiefs because they didn’t do anything wrong, they’re just doing whatever the NFL tells them to do.
“That’s why I think it’s important to have a resolution where no one feels as if anyone got an unfair disadvantage or an unfair advantage. And I don’t know what the right answer is. I do like the idea that if the Chiefs get the No. 1 seed, they take either the bye week or home field advantage throughout, that at least balances out this perception of unfairness, either good or bad, to the teams affected by it.
“I really don’t know. I think the fact that it’s taking so long for a decision to be made show that the people who get paid a lot of money to figure things out don't know what to do.”
The competition committee reportedly is meeting Thursday night to discuss how to approach the postseason. With the first games of Week 18 set to kick off Saturday, it seems like a decision should be coming soon.
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