Sport

2 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

Kliff came off among the very worst on the HBO Hard Knocks show, though I don't think anyone will ever beat Hue Jackson.

 

Has anyone ever benefitted as much from Hard Knocks as Dan Campbell?

Head coaches? I can't think of one. That Browns oline coach tho.

1 hour ago, FiddySicks said:

Taken out by the Dolphins and Lions, of all teams. Mid-to-bads doing gods work right there. 

Mike Tomlin and the Steelers have some voodoo thing going on. After losing to the Bengals to go 3-7 they needed all of the Browns, Jets, Dolphins, Titans, and Patriots to fall apart while winning every game themselves and it basically came down to a field goal in the last Dolphins game. Things outside of their control seem to go right so often for them. It's truly maddening. 

Thankfully the Bengals have managed to beat them and semi-often take division titles away from them. The Browns, though, haven't finished ahead of the Steelers in the standings since 1989. That would be my Joker origin story if I was a Browns fan. 

1 hour ago, OnWis97 said:

I'm kinda surprised to see so many people happy about the Packers. I always think of them as the second-favorite team of all non-NFC North fanbases. Is Aaron finally wearing people down?

Not even a Rodgers thing. The Packers are the Steelers of the NFC and I'm sick of their bulls***. 

Packers, Steelers, and Patriots miss the playoffs. It's a good year. 

Good thing I spent two days grumpy about that coin toss. 

Mixon's coin toss TD celebration had to happen and it was great. Every team in the league would've done the same thing. 

8 hours ago, the admiral said:

Yeah, I wasn't too impressed with Lawrence tonight. Must-win game and he was, I dunno, not bad. Jags won because they were lucky not to get Tuck Ruled on the defensive touchdown; run that scenario against Pittsburgh or New England and maybe it doesn't go their way.

8 hours ago, infrared41 said:

 

Maybe?

Two weeks ago the ball slipped out of Mac Jones’s left hand (he’s right handed) and then he waived it around trying to grab the ball. The Bengals picked it up and scored. Review said the panicked hand waving was enough to constitute a throwing motion. underhanded, with his non throwing hand. Next play the Patriots scored on one of the luckiest Hail Mary heaves I’ve ever seen. It was a 14 point swing. Dobbs fumble was more of a pass than Mac Jones’s “pass”. 

5 hours ago, BBTV said:

 

My point here was that if the Bengals had lost to the Bills and were 11-5, Baltimore would have won the division with a win tomorrow since both would be 11-6 and Baltimore would have won both games.

 

With a draw or tie, Baltimore would have been robbed of an opportunity to win the division over a team they beat twice (in this scenario.)

Okay I get what you’re saying now. My mistake. 
 

3 hours ago, Ridleylash said:

Huh, almost like moving to a market that is an extremely common tourist destination and not making sure you quickly build a local fanbase by winning and is right near Los Angeles, which already has two teams, was a bad idea.

when I went to the Bengals game in Nashville this year I apologized to all the Titans fans around me and one Titans fan said “we’re used to being everybody’s road game destination. Don’t worry about it. At least you’re not Steelers fans.” I imagine Las Vegas would be that times 5. Mark Davis should welcome the visiting fans. Their money is green too. He wasn’t getting that at the old place is Oakland. 

14 minutes ago, BBTV said:

I don't think it's that unfair to the Bengals (noting that it's a little unfair to everybody... including Baltimore.)

 

1: @Sport Your point about calling the game a tie or draw is valid.  I'm not arguing that.  That's what should have happened.  However, given the total havoc that would have created and that they chose to not do it, we are where we are.  The rules allow for on-the-fly rule changes as long as there's a vote, so while they didn't follow their rule, they followed their rule to create a solution to the problem.

Which opens Pandora's box of bulls** for many other things. It's easier to explain unfavorable outcomes for rules that were already written. It's impossible to do what they did instead without inviting bias. 

14 minutes ago, BBTV said:

 

2.  The NFL is basically saying that you can't assume a win or a loss from the suspended game.  But you can design scenarios for what the situation would have been in either case.  I think that's how they came up with the neutral-site idea so as to account for unknown home-field situations.

 

Given that's the stance that the league took:

 

If the Bengals had won:

-Tomorrow's game is meaningless and they're resting starters.

-Guaranteed home field in WC round

-outside chance at 1 seed, but extremely unlikely.

Not entirely correct. They would've still needed to beat Baltimore to clinch the two seed, which is valuable for the second round home game. They controlled their own destiny and lost it through no fault of their own. They probably would've played starters, but you manage the game entirely differently under this scenario than the one they face now. 

14 minutes ago, BBTV said:

 

If the Bengals had lost:

-Ravens have a shot to win the division by sweeping the series.

-If Cincinnati wins tomorrow, division record and H2H would be even.  Not sure what the "common game" situation is, but it's not guaranteed that the Bengals win the division.

That's incorrect.  If the Bengals had lost to the Bills the Bengals would've been 11-5 and the Ravens would be 10-6 going into tomorrow so any Bengals win over the Ravens would've made them 12-5, the Ravens 10-7, which automatically clinches the division for the Bengals without needing tiebreakers. 

14 minutes ago, BBTV said:

 

So, the Ravens were potentially screwed out of a chance to win their division, and Baltimore is collateral damage to the suspension.

 

While admitting that it's unfair to everybody, I don't think it's as unfair to Cincinnati as it's being made out to be.  Calling it a draw would probably have been more unfair to more teams, however changing the rule on the fly is also kinda sketchy (although, the rules allow for on-the-fly rule changes with a vote, so even that wasn't that unfair.)

 

 

It's unfair to the Bengals because we don't get the Ravens' coin toss scenario applied to us with regards to a potential playoff matchup with the Bills or Chiefs when our relationship to those teams is the exact same as the Ravens relationship is to the Bengals. Does that make sense? 

12 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

I'm mad at KC.

 

They had an easy schedule, played mostly home games on prime time, got that bull:censored: mulligan win over Tennessee, barely eeked out a win over Houston, and they lost to Indianapolis, which should be disqualifying. 

 

The Raiders need to get it together this weekend. They're at home. They almost beat the 49ers. They have nothing but pride to play for. Let's see a miracle.

Their schedule has been so easy! Nobody is talking about this. I have a sneaky feeling the Chiefs are going to lose their divisional round game. 

It would've cost nothing extra to apply the coin toss scenario consistently throughout. That's my biggest problem. It's almost like they thought simply giving the Bengals the division championship title would appease them. I don't give a honk about the division championship if it doesn't mean a home playoff game. 

If the Bengals had beaten the Bills and they finished with the same record the Bengals would've had the two seed. That there's no consideration for that because they're using the logic of "the Bills have more wins in the same number of games" and ignoring that they had a game scheduled. That's how it comes across on paper, but in reality we all know there was supposed to be a football game between those two (and I feel like the Bengals were going to win. That doesn't matter and we'll never know, but I feel like throwing that in). The way they've decided this essentially hands the Bills the W and the Bengals the L for the Monday Night non game. 

And it came out this morning that the Bengals abstained from the vote to be good sports while the Ravens voted yes for the proposal. You fools! Punished a second time this week for doing the right thing. 

30 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

Just trying to put it together:

 

1. The Chiefs are upset because they won't be able to host an AFC CG

2. The Bills are upset because they won't be able to host an AFC CG

3. The Bengals are upset because they don't have the opportunity to host an AFC CG should the Bills and Chiefs have both lost out?

 

Assuming Cincinnati beats Baltimore, aren't they in the same place they would have been? Or could they have made it as far as the 1 seed had they beat Buffalo and Buffalo lost to NE?

I don't know what the Bills and Chiefs gripes are, but my gripe with the Bengals is the actual rules state this game with the Ravens on Sunday shouldn't matter for the division and the league's concocted this home field coin toss scenario should the Ravens win, which means the Bengals actually have to go all out in the game, something they could've avoided by beating Buffalo on Monday. Through no fault of their own they were robbed of the chance to clinch home field in the wildcard, robbed of controlling their destiny for the two seed, AND Baltimore was given this extra credit. That'd be fine if we got the same treatment extending up the standings in regards to a potential meeting with the Chiefs and Bills. If that's how it played out we would have the exact same relationship in that scenario as the Bengals-Ravens do now, but if we all win and then go to Buffalo and KC in the second round they said "LOL tough sh** No coin toss. Go to Buffalo. We hate you." That inconsistent logic manages to the Bengals going up and going down. It's the inconsistency that pisses me off the most.  

6 minutes ago, FiddySicks said:

I think this is probably true for the Bills, unfortunately (they really do have the worst luck). But I don’t feel the same way about the Bengals. I think they had just enough separation from it all to avoid it really messing with their heads. 

I'm not worried about the mental state of either team, especially now that Hamlin's pulled through and has spoken to his teammates and a few of the Bengals visited him in the hospital. I could see palpable relief in interviews when it was announced that Hamlin was going to be alright. I think the Bills are going to be motivated to "win for Damar" and will blow out the Pats (also because I don't think very highly of this Patriots team) and I think the Bengals are now pissed off by the royal shaft the NFL stuck them with and this group seems to play well when they have an extra chip on their shoulders. 

If you can't declare a winner or loser because the game wasn't far enough along you also can't declare it a tie. I don't think it's too much to ask to just use the rules they already had on the books for No Contest decisions.

I do think it's funny that after two years of people saying "I hate how the records look with the 17 game schedule" we're going to get two, old fashioned, aesthetically pleasing 16 game season records like we all know and love. 

Related: Is Roger Goodell still with us? A player in his league nearly dies and he hasn't appeared on camera at all to make a statement at all. I don't expect a lot of that guy because I know who signs his checks, but come on. Pretend like you're running the country's biggest sports league. 

1 minute ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

Are the rules in place to call it a no contest and live with the fallout?

Yes. That's what the NFL rules say. 

1 minute ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

In that case, it eliminated the Bills' ability to rule their own destiny for the 1 seed. Of all the outcomes (outside of the player's death), that's the worst one. I'm glad the league intervened in this particular scenario because 1. I'm obviously biased and 2. It feels perverse that Kansas City would otherwise end up an outsized beneficiary of a game that didn't even happen.

Yes, but at least that's tough noogies because of an already defined set of rules and not tough noogies because Goodell and a bunch of guys made up a bunch of :censored: 11 minutes before the playoffs, voting for rules changes with specific team interests spelled out, and setting a bad precedent. One is unbiased, the other introduces various levels of inequity. I could live with the former. 

Now the next time this happens we get to do this whole "please be nice to my team" thing. Just leave the rules as is so it's not a case-by-case basis thing. It's :censored:ing dumb!

1 hour ago, BBTV said:

 

Now we're starting to go over the top with the critiques.

 

If KC and CIN both win this weekend, KC would finish with 3 losses, and CIN with 4.  There's simply no way to make up losses (you can make up wins).  That extra game wouldn't have reduced their loss total.  So they should go to KC.

 

If KC loses and the top three teams are all separated by a half game (with KC and CIN having equal losses, and BUF being ahead of CIN only because of the cancelled game) then some coin flipping should be in place to determine seeding, and CIN would have some beef about having to go on the road to play either of those.

That’s what I’m saying. If the Bengals lose to the Ravens the ravens get a coin toss, but if the Bengals and Chiefs wind up in the same relationship in the divisional round the Bengals don’t get a coin toss.  The only thing I can figure is they’re giving Baltimore the coin toss as an extra credit because they would have beaten the Bengals twice. 
 

It’s still all dumb and everything would’ve been cleanly solved by just using the damn rules about no contest decisions as they were written for this exact scenario. Some teams would’ve been slighted, but at least they would’ve felt slighted by prewritten rules and not rules made up in the nfl office this week. This sets a new bad precedent and displays varying levels of favoritism. You can't play favorites with pre-written rules. 

It'll be moot if they just beat the Ravens on Sunday, but per the actual rules as they were already written they shouldn't have had to and they've been changed on the team at the last minute, which we can all agree is bulls***. With the coin toss scenario and the likelihood that the Ravens will be the 6 seed they're essentially asking the Bengals to win their wildcard game twice if they want to advance to the division round, which they will have to play on the road through no fault of their own. 

The actual proposal makes no :censored:ing sense, zero logical consistency. It would've taken nothing extra to give the Bengals the same deal they gave the Ravens and Bills and if I didn't know better I'd say it's punishment for doing the right thing on Monday night. 

Zac Taylor's response to McDermott got the ball rolling on ending the game* and he should get credit for stopping the game, but I also feel like every coach in the league now would look at McDermott and make the same call. 20 years ago, though, I think both coaches would've tried to power through and then said the right things after the game. I still remember watching the Mike Utley and Reggie Brown games as a kid and not even thinking it was weird that they kept playing. They definitely would've kept playing if the Hamlin situation happened 30 years ago. Thankfully those sentiments are changing for the better. 

After the COVID year and Hamlin situation it's not hard to dream up bad hypotheticals for why a game might not be completed - a mass shooting at a game to suggest an absolute nightmare scenario. Because of that I've actually been very surprised how unprepared the NFL is in the event of a game not being completed. They have rules in their books about what to do, but they seem very eager to just ignore them in favor of this farkakte plan.

*and the NFL's public lauding of Taylor followed with the playoff proposal being more unfavorable to the Bengals than any other team feels like they're sending the message, "Nice work, Taylor. You did the right thing. Nobody ever do that again."

On 1/4/2023 at 6:36 PM, Discrim said:

Nashville Kats anyone? 

Before they went to the extremely Arena League uniforms that looked like the Titans and Miami Hurricanes had a baby they wore these fun guitar neck striped pants, which young me loved. Best pictures I could find. 

Last week the Bengals had a shot at the 1 seed and now there's a chance they could win their division and still play the wildcard game in Baltimore, which essentially means Division champions in title (and next season's schedule) only. Gee thanks. They gave the Bills and Ravens a coin toss scenario, but we don't get a coin scenario should we play the Bills in the divisional round? Feels like we got the worst end of everything here despite doing the right thing on Monday night. I don't know why that doesn't seem to count for anything here. 

15 minutes ago, oldschoolvikings said:

Another scenario I’ve heard is to take the playoffs to 8 teams per conference for this year, and eliminating the bye week so there isn’t that advantage given to any team.  This move to 8 would supposedly be temporary, but if they did it you know there’s no way it would end up being temporary.  

I don't like that idea because a few teams played differently last week because they thought the game didn't matter for them. Also it would probably put stupid Steelers in the playoffs. 

It would be incredibly NFL to experience an episode caused by their dangerous sport and respond by playing more of their dangerous sport. 

10 minutes ago, infrared41 said:

 

Maybe, maybe not. It probably depends on what caused the cardiac arrest. If he had an underlying heart issue, then yeah, his career is most likely over. If it was the result of a fluke hit, he could come back. (See Chris Pronger) The lung issues he's having may have been a result of CPR. What we see on TV and in movies is not a realistic depiction of CPR. From what I understand, CPR is actually pretty rough. Having your ribs broken while receiving it is fairly common. Point being, it's only been three days and we don't know anything yet.

Preface: This is like fourth hand telephone and none of these people worked on Hamlin and I'm not a medical professional  so it's all speculation and don't repeat this as true gospel. SIL is a physical therapist at a hospital here in Cincinnati and works with a doctor who also works at UC. Doctor, who, again, did not treat Hamlin, told my SIL that Hamlin may have suffered from acute respiratory distress syndrome which can happen after cardiac arrest/CPR and that's why they were having difficulty getting him off the ventilator. Because of ARDS they had to flip him on his stomach to help his lungs heal, which means they had to sedate him further, which is why it took 40 something hours to wake him up. She also said that she heard the CT scans of his brain looked really good. 

and again disclaimer that's just what she told me, she hasn't been treating him, and I don't pretend to know what I'm talking about. 

Every option is bad. There are no good solutions. I think the least bad solution is call it no contest and worry about seeding after Week 18. It doesn't ask the Bills or Bengals to reconvene, repreprare, and then play whats essentially an 18th game. It's also the most practical for everyone's scheduling and requires no scheduling/logistic gymnastics. It screws the Bengals and Bills out of shots at the 1 seed, but that's why I'm saying it's the Least Bad solution - they all have drawbacks. I'm not that worried about Ravens feelings because a Bengals Win, Loss, Tie, or other against the Bills was out of the Ravens' control anyway. They controlled their destiny to make the game with the Bengals into the AFCN championship game and they lost at home to the Steelers. If we're ranking how unfair the situation is for the impacted teams I'd put them a distant third. It's not like they'll be eliminated from the playoffs as a result. 

Chiefs

Jags

Browns

Vikings

Jets

Bucs

Saints

Colts

49ers

Cowboys

Seahawks

Eagles

Broncos

Packers

Bengals

Bills

No Bart Scott sucks and has a pattern of jackass takes. He’s wrong here. 

There's two long-held rumors circulating in Blue Jackets online circles about hosting a game at Ohio Stadium and why it hasn't happened and won't anytime soon:

1. Rumor is someone in a position of power with the team doesn't want to do it so they haven't asked the league.

2. Ohio State, who is a terrible partner with the local pro teams, claims the stadium isn't winterized and they don't want to winterize it for one event. Notre Dame and Michigan stadiums hosted Winter Classics just fine, Ohio Stadium itself has hosted below freezing football games before, so I call BS on that. They could make it happen if they wanted to, but they don't want to because they don't like anything in the city that isn't about them. 

And that's without getting into all the issues about the team not being a large national draw or being, ya know, good. 

I want to see some test football games for a spring league where punting isn't allowed. You have to go for it on every fourth down. What would that mean for the defenses? What would that mean for offensive play calling? What would the final scores look like? 

I was not at the game, but I was downtown last night. Surreal experience leaving the bar and trying to get home before the rush. Very quiet, eerie, nobody really knew what to do. People I know at the game said it was terrifying. 

It's really weird the relationship Bills and Bengals fans have developed since the Bengals clinched the playoffs for them in 2017. I can't think of any other fanbase friendships in sports quite like it. We're going to be linked for a very long time. 

As far as what to do about the game - who even cares? Just don't play it and treat it like a tie.