DENVER (KDVR) — The NFL has officially announced the Bills-Bengals game will not resume after safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field earlier this week.
Playing the game would require the playoffs to be postponed for a week and would affect all qualifying clubs, and canceling it means teams will know the playoff possibilities before the last week of the regular season, according to the NFL.
“As we considered the football schedule, our principles have been to limit disruption across the league and minimize competitive inequities,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a news release. “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.”
The NFL said not finishing the Buffalo-Cincinnati game “will have no effect on which clubs qualify for the post season,” with no club qualifying or getting eliminated based on the possible outcome.
But canceling the game “creates potential competitive inequities in certain playoff scenarios,” the league said. The clubs will have a special meeting on Friday to consider a resolution to address the issue.
It’s a complex situation that the NFL has broken into two elements for consideration. The full text of those elements is reproduced below, as released by the NFL.
NFL clubs to meet after Bills-Bengals cancellation
“1. The AFC Championship Game will be played at a neutral site if the participating teams played an unequal number of games and both could have been the number one seed and hosted the game had all AFC clubs played a full 17-game regular season. Those circumstances involve Buffalo or Cincinnati qualifying for the game as a road team and are listed below:
Scenario 1
Buffalo and Kansas City both win or both tie – a Buffalo vs Kansas City championship game would be at a neutral site.
Scenario 2
Buffalo and Kansas City both lose and Baltimore wins or ties – a Buffalo vs Kansas City championship game would be at a neutral site.
Scenario 3
Buffalo and Kansas City both lose and Cincinnati wins – a Buffalo or Cincinnati vs Kansas City championship game would be at a neutral site.
2. If Baltimore defeats Cincinnati in Week 18 it will have defeated Cincinnati, a divisional opponent, twice but will not be able to host a playoff game because Cincinnati will have a higher winning percentage for a 16-game schedule than Baltimore will for a 17-game schedule.
If Baltimore defeats Cincinnati and if those two clubs are scheduled to play a Wild Card game against one another, the site for that game would be determined by a coin toss. If Cincinnati wins the Week 18 game or if Baltimore and Cincinnati are not scheduled to play one another in the Wild Card round, the game sites would be determined by the regular scheduling procedures.”
NFL
Hamlin shows ‘remarkable recovery’
Doctors say Hamlin is still sick, but has shown “remarkable recovery and improvement,” WIVB reported. From the hospital’s standpoint, the next steps to watch for Hamlin are continued improvement, breathing on his own and getting ready to be discharged from the hospital.