Individuals with the Cincinnati Bengals are unhappy with the NFL over its proposed playoff scenarios following the cancellation of this past Monday’s Cincinnati-Buffalo Bills game.
“The proper process for making rule change (sic) is in the off-season,” Bengals executive vice president Katie Blackburn wrote in a memo shared by Ben Baby of ESPN. “It is not appropriate to put teams in a position to vote for something that may introduce bias, favor one team over another or impact their own situation when the vote takes place immediately before the playoffs.”
Twenty-four of 32 league owners must vote to approve the scenarios. That vote will be held Friday afternoon.
Monday’s Bills-Bengals encounter was suspended, postponed and ultimately canceled after Buffalo safety Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest during the contest’s first quarter. Hamlin had his breathing tube removed overnight and was able to speak with others as of Friday morning.
It was reported Thursday evening that a coin flip could determine the location of a potential wild-card game between the 11-4 Bengals and 10-6 Baltimore Ravens if Baltimore beats Cincinnati Sunday. The Ravens defeated the Bengals back in October but now mathematically have no way to catch the AFC North’s first-place team via overall records.
The league also said it could hold the AFC Championship Game at a neutral site if necessary.
However, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk pointed out that the NFL already has policies in place regarding in-season game cancellations.
“If a game is canceled, a team’s standing in its division or in its conference (e.g., qualification as a Wild Card in the playoffs or position in playoff seeding) shall be determined on the basis of its final record,” reads a portion of the league’s policy manual for the 2022 campaign. “When necessary, playoff tiebreakers shall be calculated according to per game average for all teams.”
As Reice Shipley noted for the Comeback, Bengals star running back Joe Mixon lashed out at the proposals via Twitter:
