2022 NFL regular season through Super Bowl LVII

[DG_ThenNowForever]

I think KC should do the gentlemanly thing and lose this weekend.

[alxy8s]

6 hours ago, gothedistance said:

 

Here's another thing. The Bills and Bengals may both finish 1st in their respective divisions. The AFC North hosts the AFC East for 2023. Buffalo would visit Cincinnati for that placement game. Would the league want to make that game be on a neutral site? To wash away the bad memory of the tragedy? 

Pretty sure the locations of those games aren’t locked in yet. If Damar can play, I wouldn’t be surprised if they make CIN @ BUF the first prime time game of the season. EDIT: Nvm, it is East @ North. That exact match-up in the same stadium might be too on the nose and gross for even the NFL.

 

On the AFCCG … I’d choose playing in neutral dome over home field advantage if said field was frozen solid in a -10*F wind chill 100 times out of 100.

[Sport]

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. 

 

[infrared41]

1 hour ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

I think KC should do the gentlemanly thing and lose this weekend.

 

Here's hoping that Jarett Stidham has another Ken Stabler-esque performance in him.

[TrueYankee26]

Y'all want some good news HERE IT IS

 

 

[B-Rich]

13 hours ago, Cujo said:

 

Thirty years ago, this is exactly what the league would've ruled.

More likely, thirty years ago (1992)  the league would've finished the game.  That was pre-concussion safety era, medical protocols were very different/not as advanced back then (my own company's office has an emergency defibrillator in the hallway and everyone has undergone training to work it):

And most notably there would have been not nearly the amount of information shared to the public  during live game time. Hamlin would've been put on a stretcher/gurney, carted off the field to the concourse,  thence loaded into an ambulance and taken to the hospital.  

 

I daresay his survivability 30 years ago would probably even be questionable. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

I don't think it's 30 years vs today. I'm willing to bet as recently as 5 years ago they would have finished the game.

 

I think the COVID experience made sports leagues and their TV partners a lot more flexible, both with general scheduling and in real time.

 

I'm thinking specifically of when the Bucks stopped their NBA bubble game due to the police shooting if Jacob Blake, and the bubble experiment came to a complete standstill. And, in fact, the players got voting rights concessions from the owners in order to resume playing.

 

Coupled with the NIL, I think everyone involved has acknowledged a new era of player empowerment.

 

I also think the COVID experience, and the coaches who lived through it, more comfort in acting like humans. Both coaches from Monday night were decent human beings; you have to wonder if a prime Bill Belichick or Don Shula or Mike Ditka would have been as charitable.

[Sport]

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."

[DCarp1231]

Browns sent Jadeveon Clowney home from practice today because he decided to be a dumbass and open say he wasn’t going to return to Cleveland next year 

[goalieboy82]

15 hours ago, Cujo said:

Bills-Bengals officially scratched, will not be made up.

 

Neutral site AFCCG on the table:

 

https://www.outkick.com/joe-mixon-not-happy-with-nfl-over-afc-playoffs-proposal-damar-hamlin-bengals-bills/

 

[Seadragon76]

40 minutes ago, goalieboy82 said:

https://www.outkick.com/joe-mixon-not-happy-with-nfl-over-afc-playoffs-proposal-damar-hamlin-bengals-bills/

 

 

I don't blame him for being mad here because Cincinnati could get hosed if they lose to Baltimore. Here's the thing - all they need to do is beat Baltimore. That's it. That whole scenario that would induce a coin toss to decide who hosts a Baltimore-Cincinnati playoff game goes away if the Bengals beat the Ravens.

 

Also, the plan for a neutral site AFC Championship Game also goes away if all three teams lose in the playoffs. It's a long shot, but you never know...

[floydnimrod]

As someone who lives in Cincinnati, I honestly don't really feel anything about the new playoff proposals. After watching Monday's game, I think I'm done with football for the year. A freak accident has me spooked.

 

As expected, after everyone seemed to be trying to one-up everyone about how much they personally felt that football was just game, we're back to the belief that football is the most important thing going on. I was hoping, despite the unfortunate events, that we could have rode that wave that these games really are completely unimportant. (Come join me! Sports are fun! You don't have to watch just to be mad!)

[TBGKon]

15 hours ago, Red Comet said:

Could’ve had far worse solutions. FWIW, Indianapolis happens to be almost equidistant from Kansas City and Buffalo. That’s probably where the Conference Title game ends up if it comes to that. 

I agree, it's pretty certain that a dome will be used for the AFC Championship Game if necessary.  I feel like Indy is the frontrunner, but Detroit could be a maybe.

[BBTV]

7 minutes ago, floydnimrod said:

As expected, after everyone seemed to be trying to one-up everyone about how much they personally felt that football was just game

 

I'm typically the first person that rolls their eyes when there's a tragedy and it becomes a game of who can pretend to care more, but I didn't get that feeling at all in this case.  I think every response and every reaction (at least on this board) has been genuine, not over-the-top, and very well balanced between feelings towards the player, praise of the EMTs and trainers that saved his life, bashing the league, and the overall rankings of priorities between humans and a sport. 

 

7 minutes ago, floydnimrod said:

we're back to the belief that football is the most important thing going on

 

I don't think that nitpicking the potential playoff scenarios equates to "football is the most important thing going on".  It's a thing that's happening, and we're talking about it.  If people were like "WHY DOES MY TEAM HAVE TO GET SCREWED JUST BECAUSE SOME GUY HAD TO CHOOSE THAT GAME TO ALMOST DIE?!?!?!?!" then I'd be with you, but everyone that I'm hearing critique the options seems to be doing so with an understanding and sensitivity towards the situation that lead to this.

[Luigi74]

Per Google maps its 7 hours 40 minutes from KC to Chicago and 8 hours 10 minutes from Buffalo to the Windy City, why not Solider Field! Both teams play outdoors so it's not like they'd force a dome team to play outside.

[BBTV]

Maybe they should just have the Bills and Chiefs play at a neutral site on Wild Card weekend and then give the winner a bye to the championship game.  That handles the home field and bye scenario.  Doesn't help the Bengals though.

[Red Comet]

I just don’t want the NFL to make a neutral site Conference Championship Game a precedent going forward. Feels like the NFL would try and pull a “let no crisis go waste” move if they could get away with it. 

 

As for teams squabbling about playoff locations and whatnot, it’s to be expected, especially considering that Hamlin’s recovery has been rapid so far. Moments of unity are special because they’re so rare and fleeting. 

[Sport]

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. 

[Luigi74]

4 minutes ago, Red Comet said:

I just don’t want the NFL to make a neutral site Conference Championship Game a precedent going forward. Feels like the NFL would try and pull a “let no crisis go waste” move if they could get away with it. 

 

As for teams squabbling about playoff locations and whatnot, it’s to be expected, especially considering that Hamlin’s recovery has been rapid so far. Moments of unity are special because they’re so rare and fleeting. 

I doubt that the owners would want natural site Conference Championship Games, they like those deposits on two or three rounds of playoff tickets that can rolled into a deposit on season tickets if they get eliminated. Interest baby!

[BBTV]

41 minutes ago, Sport said:

f I didn't know better I'd say it's punishment for doing the right thing on Monday night. 

 

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.