Mango

1 minute left on the clock.

I think there is some confusion from two camps. One side is saying the Bills have to play this game because of seeding for other teams. The Bills don't have to do anything. Taylor and McDermott proved that to the league the other night. I don't agree with making two teams play who don't want to. Which we don't actually know one way or another. But what I think a good portion of the board is saying isn't that the Bills should not play the game. Rather if both the Bills/Bengals feels compelled to replay that game they should. If they don't the league is capable of issuing losses, ties, etc. without rescheduling the entirety of the playoffs.

Looks like Taylor took the initiative to close the game out for the Bills. Classy move.

It is certainly unprecedented in the NFL. Damar Hamlin died on the field, and laid there dead for 9 minutes. That is an important distinction to make. I don't mean to diminish KE's journey or injury. It certainly was and is a major situation. I am not arguing which is worse, rather this is just something totally different. This is a better conversation for another thread, but I thought that was important. I will bow out of derailing the talk about the Pats game.

I mean, my dice thing was clearly a joke. Moving an entire league is a behemoth task first of all. Most fair to who? Maybe the Steelers? Not the Bills or Bengals who will play a meaningful football game while the entire league sits at home for 7 days. Im suggesting that the way the standings are today remain the same. How is that not the absolute most fair? When the McDaniels calls to complain about this, the league can tell him without an ounce of remorse, “a guy died on the field. We’re not doing this.” Im not asking for a league mandated loss. I’m saying if the team doesn’t want to replay the game and wants to move on. I get the sense that’s the case but I could be wrong.

So I think as dumb as this post is you’re on to something. As long as the Bills handle business in NE (Big If), nothing will change the fact that they have more conference wins and the head to head.

Especially early on. Like you show up traffic court and the line is around the block. You know you’re gonna be there for 4-5 hours minimum. You first get in line…bam….over with.

Just tell them if they don’t they’re nothing but a buncha yellow bellied cowards.

I feel like this is much too soon to be having this conversation. As a team, coaching staff, and fan base they were as supportive as one possibly could be. I can’t imagine partaking in a conversation about this while Tee Higgins has been at the hospital for 24 hours. they’re service at 8:55 tonight outside the hospital the same time Hamlin went down. Or the Bengals fans who went right to the hospital to show support for one of ours. I really dislike this.

Thank you for sharing this.

This is by far my least favorite. Take the loss. Move on. Let the league and the team start to put the trauma behind them. Reshuffle the whole league, to have them be the only story line in the country. For two teams already in as high seeds. It will be nonstop talk about Hamlin. If the locker room wants this sure. But it doesn’t “feel” like they do. And my pulse on the city is that they don't want this either. It just provides so little value. Also, KC has like an 80% chance of losing one of their wins. This definitely favors CIN and BUF. By a wide margin.

This makes some sense. Especially for the top 3. It sounds like the league is prepped to let the 7 seed figure itself out without the result from that game. I could be wrong, but it felt that way to me. Here is my idea. We roll a 12 sided dice for KC for each conference game. Whatever number it rolls on is the corresponding game they played against a conference opponent. If it’s a win, they drop that game from their record. If it’s a loss they lose that. But if they roll the H2H match up with either CIN or BUF they get leap frogged by that team. Automatically.

The only reason this is wonky is because KC played the Bengals and Bills losing to both. As unique as this situation is, this is even more rare because of the teams it affects right now. My first choice is to take the L and move on. In any other scenario I don’t understand why KC gets the one seed after losing to both CIN and BUF.

That isn’t true. The league doesn’t owe any teams anything. No team is shorted. Nothing has changed for those teams there are in the same spot they were in 36 hours ago. Every team is in the same exact spot in the standing they were before kick off of a game that wasn’t played. Their standing last week was fair. Nobody is messing with their standings. I find this argument so weak. Nearly everybody in Buffalo has offered up the L. Nobody cares.

This wasn’t the Bills problem at kick off. And it’s not the Bills problem now. This keeps getting mentioned like the Bills owe it to other teams to make the game up. They don’t.

It’s been a minute for me, but not thaaaat long. AED’s have always been at all of my events. I think they have to be within something like 300m.

I am still shook by this. Not that I shouldn’t be. But I have a serious pit. My partner asked me today “will you be happy again?” Clearly I will. Life goes on. But there is a heaviness to our home today.

So this is something that needs to be talked about more. Or at least framed properly. Hamlin didn’t almost die. He died on national television, and all his friends, family, and teammates watched. It’s a little bit of a pain point for me when I hear the “what ifs” in terms of scheduling. “Well we have to see how he does”. Why? All of his best friends watched him die, and saw him laying dead for 9 minutes. He may well recover, but none of that changes the above.

Sorry, I didn't go far enough back in the exchange. I thought you were talking about the Bengals. I think the Bills play the Pats. But I wouldn't be shocked if they didn't.

I don’t know think Hamlin’s status matter in regards to scheduling. Hi literally died in front of his entire team and the country. He was brought back to life after 9 minutes. I am very concerned with Hamlin as a person. But he already died on national TV. There’s zero reason to play this game.

They all get their stock from the same place. So NFL shop, Fanatics, Buffalo Bills shop, they are all pulling from the same inventory.

I’ll add, anybody iffy giving money to the foundation, NFL players get 2/3 of their jersey sales through licensed retailers. We grabbed two and donated as well.

I have said 100 times the last 18 hours, I don't care about win, loss, or tie. Move on. Playing this game doesn't make sense. Take the L, or tie, or don't count it, whatever. I will say that SoS makes no sense for the 1 seed where we stand now. The only difference is this one game due to extreme circumstance where a guy died and was brought back to life. Those two teams hold the head to heads over KC. I think you likely hold 1. Buffalo 2. KC 3. Cincinnati assuming all three win next week There is no positives or negatives given to any team. If Buffalo loses, go ahead and move them to the 3 seed. If KC loses, CIN moves to the 2. It is that simple.

The initial rumors and reports were that the league wanted the game to continue. The league said that was crazy. ESPN said, that's not crazy, we literally just reported what you told us. We communicated in real time. You tried to play the football game The league sucks.

I stuck around to hear about Hamlin. But it became clear very quickly that there was no way football was going to be played. Kudo's to McD, Zac Brown, and ESPN for not backing down to the behemoth that is the NFL.