Quarterback Joe Burrow doesn’t seem too bothered over the fact he and the Cincinnati Bengals will play at the Buffalo Bills this Sunday after the incident involving Bills safety Damar Hamlin.
“It is what it is,” Burrow told NBC Sports’ Peter King shortly after the Bengals defeated the Baltimore Ravens 24-17 on Sunday night. “That’s … that’s where we’re at. It’s our job to figure out how to go in there and get a win.”
The Week 17 Bills-Bengals matchup at Cincinnati’s Paycor Stadium was suspended, postponed, and eventually canceled after Hamlin went into cardiac arrest during the game’s first quarter.
Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio later reported that at least some within the NFL considered using a coin flip to determine a winner for the scrapped game so that all teams would have 17 completed contests as part of their final records. That didn’t happen, and the Bills finished second in the overall AFC standings at 13-3. Thus, they’re hosting a Bengals (12-4) team that never received a chance to leapfrog Buffalo for the No. 2 playoff seed.
“When something like that happens,” Burrow said about Hamlin’s medical emergency, “you’re not the Bengals and the Bills anymore. You’re NFL players who care about each other and want the best for one another. So that was a tough moment. It’s great that [Hamlin] is back in Buffalo with the team. I think that’ll make the game a lot easier to play.
“That night, yeah, I was proud of the way things were handled. I think it was handled the right way. Both teams showed support to each other. It was a hard moment for everybody. Head coaches handled it with class and the right decision was made at the end to cancel the game. I was proud to be an NFL player in that moment.”
It was learned last week that Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home of the Atlanta Falcons, will be the neutral site for the AFC Championship Game if it involves the Bills and Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs host the Jacksonville Jaguars on Saturday afternoon.
Some have suggested the upcoming Bengals-Bills clash should take place at a neutral field to make things fair for Cincinnati. Burrow is instead focusing his energy on earning a win at Buffalo’s Highmark Stadium.
