From Phillies Talk (@philliepisstalk):
From Raymond Nuznoff (@mrstingray93):
Phils and Raymond, on the league’s Wednesday conference call, I asked specifically about the idea of the NFL doing what you suggest—essentially creating a Week 19, moving the playoffs back a week, and eliminating the Super Bowl bye week as to not change the Super Bowl date (it’d be to move the Super Bowl because of logistics)—and they didn’t shoot it down out of hand. Right now, it seems like all options are on the table.
None of them are completely clean. Here are a few …
• Creating a Week 19 works for a lot of reasons. The problem? You’d be giving bye weeks to the other 12 teams in the playoffs, putting the Bills and Bengals at a disadvantage and potentially having the Chiefs and Eagles working off consecutive bye weeks. And not that this should be a factor, but it’d also blow up the NFL’s new Pro Bowl setup.
• The other relatively clean scenario would be to declare Bills-Bengals a no-contest. The Chiefs, who lost to both Cincinnati and Buffalo, would benefit in two ways. One, it’d give them control of securing the No. 1 seed, something they didn’t have at 8 p.m. ET Monday. Two, it’d lock them in, at worst, as the No. 2 seed, whereas before , there was a chance they could fall to the No. 3 seed. And that’s a big deal because it could set up a potential Bengals-Chiefs divisional playoff game at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City.
• NFL commissioner Roger Goodell could work with the Chiefs and say he’d judged them against the Bills and Bengals “after 16 games,” which would give the Bills a chance to catch the Chiefs on Sunday, but not the Bengals (along those lines, I’d be interested to see what Chiefs owner Clark Hunt’s involvement would be in this).
• The league could theoretically award wins to both the Bengals and Bills. But this one and the “after 16 games” idea both could be problematic from a precedent standpoint.
Then, there’s another idea Chris Gasper of the brought up to me that I actually liked. The league would award the top seed to the Bills for beating the Chiefs, give Buffalo the week off, then reschedule the Patriots to play the Steelers this weekend in Pittsburgh (with the Browns canceled, which would work because Cleveland and New England already got all their home games in) to help determine the final playoff spot.
But if that was happening, it’d have happened by now.
The thing with all of this is that, regardless of what you do, a team will be adversely affected. Given the circumstances, though, I think everyone can deal with it.
From Steven (@ScubaSteveSiano):
Steven, I personally understand, and respect the sentiment, but I don’t think so. I think a lot of this has shifted from 30 years ago—when players were unknowingly taking risks and the league was hiding information on concussions from them. The dynamic is different now, with the players having better information on the risks they’re taking, and more being done to protect them, as the athletes, like you said, get bigger, faster and stronger.
I also think sports such as boxing, mixed martial arts and hockey come with plenty of risk and remain popular, even if not as popular as football.
And again, I’m not saying I wouldn’t respect others’ decisions to stop watching because they can’t stomach what happens on the field. Seeing things like we all did Monday isn’t easy for anyone. But I don’t think being able to get through those things and continue watching the sport should lead to any sort of moral judgment.
From GPenddak (@GPenddak):
It’s a great question, and I don’t have the answer.
The unfortunate reality is that most players have seen teammates and opponents endure gruesome injuries and been told the show must go on—with a drill being moved or a cart taking a player off the field to accommodate a game or practice resuming in the aftermath. I think what makes this different, and I certainly don’t want to speak for the players going through it, is that there’s still a massive amount of uncertainty lingering over what was a life-and-death situation on the field Monday night in Cincinnati.
So you can say players will reckon with this like they do other bad injuries. Maybe some will. I just can’t say for sure that it’s that simple for everyone. And my feeling would be it probably isn’t for the Bills.
