NFL botched the handling of Bengals-Bills divisional playoff game Why it should be at a neutral site

NFL botched the handling of Bengals-Bills divisional playoff game Why it should be at a neutral site

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The NFL got a lot of things right in the aftermath of the frightening incident, but one thing the league got wrong was its decision to modify the AFC playoffs.If you're going to make a drastic change to the postseason, you want to make sure it's fair to everyone, but the NFL apparently forgot that the exist because the playoff changes definitely weren't fair to them.Back on Jan. 6, the league's 32 owners that mostly impacted just four teams (, , Bengals, ). Of those four teams, only one got the short end of the stick: The Bengals.It seems that a few owners realized that the new rules weren't fair, which might explain why the Jared Spurgeon Jersey proposal only pa sed by ONE vote. It needed 24 votes to pa s and it got 25 (According , the Bengals, and voted against it while the Chiefs, Bills, and all abstained). Here's a look at what the NFL got wrong:Due to the cancellation, the Bills lost control of po sibly getting the No. 1 seed in the AFC, so the NFL made up for that by giving them a chance to earn a neutral-site game if they made it to the AFC Championship. For Baltimore, the Ravens lost the chance of po sibly winning the AFC North title, so the NFL made up for that by giving them a chance of hosting a wild-card round playoff game by adding a coin-flip provision that the Bengals were absolutely against.For the Bengals, they lost control of po sibly getting the No. 2 seed, so the NFL made up for that by giving them ... nothing.It's not exactly fair and the league clearly knew it wasn't fair, because the NFL actually had a LENGTHY discu sion about putting a po sible Bengals-Bills game at a neutral site, according to Rich McKay, who happens to be the chairman of the competition committee. "Yes, there was (consideration for a Buffalo-Cincinnati neutral site)," McKay said on Jan. 6, . "That was discu sed at length on the call amongst ownership."So the NFL knew it was unfair and went through with the original proposal anyway. The league was willing to change its rules for the wild-card round (Ravens) and AFC Championship (neutral site), but it decided not to do anything about the divisional round, which is why the third-seeded Bengals are now playing in Buffalo this weekend.Let's see how the Bengals feel about that. Je sie Bates on , about the Erik Haula Jersey site of the game this weekend:I think it should have been a neutral site, but I like Buffalo. Itll be a fun environment. Drew Garrison (@DrewGarrison) As for the Chiefs, they had nothing to complain about because the Bills-Bengals cancellation e sentially handed them the No. 1 seed and the first-round bye in the AFC. When the NFL decided to change the rules, Roger Goodell was competitive inequity. Since the Bengals and Bills played the same amount of games, the NFL chose not to add a provision that would have given the Bengals a chance to earn a neutral-site game."This is a focused approach that will only affect four teams, and directly addre s the potential for competitive inequity resulting from 30 teams playing 17 games and two playing 16 games," Goodell said.Mike North, the NFL's vice president of broadcast planning, aka the guy in charge of making the schedule, echoed the sentiments. "The fact that Buffalo and Cincy never got played, they're going to have a different number of games played relative to Kansas City," North said. "But when it comes to Buffalo and Cincinnati playing each other potentially in the divisional round of the playoffs, theyplayed the same number of games -- they've both played 16 games. So there wasn't really a conversation about a coin flip relative to the host site."The problem with that comment is that the Bengals and Bills didn't have an equitable schedule. Yes, they played the same amount of games, but the Bengals played nine road games this year while the Bills only played eight. Visiting teams won just .437 of their games this year, so playing one le s road game is definitely an advantage, especially when you consider the road game the Bills didn't play would have arguably been their toughest one of the season.There are always inequities thrown into every NFL schedule -- like international games -- but those are voted upon and agreed to by every team before the season. In this instance, the NFL came up with a rule on the fly and enforced it even though not every team agreed with it. On the Bills' end, they didn't get a completely fair shake, but the NFL did e sentially hand them their own version of home-field advantage: If the Bills make it to the Super Bowl, they won't have had to play a single road game: They got to host the Dolphins in the wild-card round, they host the Bengals in the divisional round, and if they make it to the AFC title game, they either get to host the or play a neutral-site game against the Chiefs.On the Bengals' end, the cancellation and playoff changes gave them a division title that came with none of the perks of winning a division title because they weren't Chris Stewart Jersey even guaranteed a home game thanks to the NFL's coin-to s provision. By adding that, the Bengals were forced to play their starters in Week 18. That's notable, because they ended up losing a key player (right guard ) to injury.The coin-to s provision was so absurd that mocked it after scoring a touchdown against the Ravens in Week 18. Mixon really had a coin in his glove | Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) After getting hit with a fine of more than $13,000, Mixon to see who should pay it. Goodell did not respond.Anyway, if the NFL had NOT changed anything at all and stuck with the rules that were on the book, everything would have been determined by winning percentage. In that case, the Bengals would still currently be the three-seed, but they would have been able to rest their starters in Week 18, which means the injury to Cappa likely doesn't happen.The NFL doesn't change the rules often, but when it does, it always seems to have a negative impact on the Bengals. In what can only be described as the weirdest twist ever, the last time the league made a major rule change in the playoffs came during the 1988 season when the NFL changed the rules on the Bengals just before Cincinnati was about to play Buffalo in the AFC title game. The last time the Bengals played in an AFC Championship, the NFL CHANGED the rules for the game just TWO HOURS before kickoff. Here are the details on one of the oddest situations in NFL playoff history: John Breech (@johnbreech) The bottom line here is that the Bengals have the deck stacked against them this year and if they end up making another Super Bowl run, it will be even more impre sive than the one they made last year.
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