The Bills-Bengals game was halted on Monday night after Buffalo safety Damar Hamlin passed out and suffered a heart arrest on the pitch. The NFL said on Thursday that it will not restart play.
“Not playing the Buffalo-Cincinnati game to its conclusion will have no effect on which clubs qualify for the postseason,” the league noted in reference to one of the considerations that went into its decision. Based on the result of this game, no team will be eliminated and no club will advance to the postseason.
Also, the NFL said playing the game between the Bills and Bengals would have required postponing the start of the playoffs by a week, thereby affecting all 14 teams who qualified for the postseason.
The NFL stated that “potential competitive inequities in certain playoff scenarios” are created by its decision. The league said that clubs would discuss a resolution that was suggested by the commissioner and accepted by the competition committee today in a special league meeting on Friday.
Three days after needing to be revived on the pitch, the 24-year-old footballer has showed what his doctors are describing as “remarkable improvement over the past 24 hours,” the team said on Thursday.
For the AFC, the Bills-Bengals game had significant playoff implications. Buffalo (12-3) needed to win on Monday night in order to hold the top spot in the AFC. That position is currently held by the Kansas City Chiefs (13-3). If the Chiefs lost and the Bengals (11-4) won two more games, they would have had a chance to claim the top spot.
One of the alternatives that the competition committee accepted is having the AFC championship game held somewhere neutral. Several locations, including indoor and outdoor stadiums, are under consideration by the league.
If the participating teams did not play an equal number of games, the AFC Championship Game will take place in a neutral location. If all AFC clubs had played a complete 17-game regular season, both might have had the top seed and hosted the game.
In certain cases, either Buffalo or Cincinnati would have to qualify for the match while playing on the road. This weekend’s AFC title game between the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs would take place at a neutral location if both teams win or draw.
A Bills-Chiefs AFC title game would take place at a neutral location if Baltimore wins or ties and Buffalo and Kansas City both lose.
The AFC title game between the Bengals and Bills and Kansas City would take place at a neutral site if Cincinnati triumphs and both Buffalo and Kansas City lose.
The Ravens would also have two victories over a divisional opponent in the Bengals if they beat them in Week 18, but they would not be eligible to host a playoff game since Cincinnati will have a greater winning percentage for a 16-game schedule than Baltimore will for a 17-game season.
Thus, in the event that Baltimore triumphs over Cincinnati and those two teams are slated to face off in a wild-card game, a coin flip would decide the location of that encounter.
However, the standard scheduling methods would determine the game venues if Baltimore and Cincinnati are not slated to face each other in the wild-card round, or if the Bengals win this weekend.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell stated, “As we considered the football schedule, our principles have been to limit disruption across the league and minimise competitive inequities.” “I understand that there isn’t a perfect answer. However, the idea we are requesting the ownership to take into consideration tackles the most important possible equitable difficulties brought about by the tough but essential choice to forgo playing the game in these exceptional situations.
