BillsFanSD

Can't blame them. This is a ludicrous outcome. If you're going to flip a coin, then do that to determine the outcome of the CIN/BUF game and be done with it. The proposed solution is worse because it involves a coin flip plus a bunch of other stuff including a gratuitous screw-job for the Bengals.

From what I've been told to expect, this outcome is on the very upper end of what was possible. It's probably fair to start thinking more about what this injury means for Hamlin career-wise. Obviously that wasn't the main focus yesterday. If this was really commotio cordis, my understanding is that there's excellent chance that he returns to football. Things change if there's an underlying heart issue that nobody knew about. That will all get sorted out of course.

Good point. Very few teams have ever rallied to recover from a 7-3 first quarter deficit. We totally got bailed out.

We're getting way ahead of ourselves here, but the Bills will probably be favored in any AFCCG against any opponent. Bad weather is a field-leveler that always benefits the underdog. I don't think we should mind playing on a neutral field, especially if it's a dome or a warm-weather location. There's a very real likelihood that that will be better for us than playing in Orchard Park.

Power ratings are just listicles for people to respond to each week. They don't mean anything.

I've noticed this too and I was wondering the same thing. Not judging him or anything, but it feels like he kind of vanished. I'm sure that's probably not actually the case. Edit: Whoops, I should have kept reading. Thanks to everybody who answered this.

I can live with this, but it's dumb that we're doing neutral fields and deciding divisional titles by coin flips when we could have just used a coin flip to determine the outcome of this one game and then proceeded normally. There's no need to go all Rube Goldberg when a more parsimonious solution was available, but whatever. In the offseason, when everyone is calm, collected, and rational, it would be a very good idea to reconsider our protocols for handling severe injuries, playing games under plausibly-traumatic circumstances (including off-field events like the Sean Taylor situation), and how to deal with games that can't be played. We can do far better than this.

I doubt it. This would not have been that big a deal if the league had had a procedure in place and followed it. It's their own fault that they didn't anticipate this situation in advance. I imagine that will get rectified in the offseason.

I've always wanted to see a three-way NFL game. Here's our chance.

None of that stuff matters though. If a player suffered a Kevin Everett-type injury this weekend, there is basically zero chance that the game would continue, based on the precedent set by this game. For better or for worse, this game changed things, and the league should recognize that and start planning accordingly. This is a good thing for some group to work on during the offseason. For example, if there's a clear plan for how to handle cancelled games so that everybody knows how this works up front, it wouldn't be that big a deal to shut down a game if a player suffers a serious injury that involves paralysis or worse. They just need guidelines so we're not making it up as we go along like we did this week.

I'm not asking for any special favors, and I don't want any. But the Bills lost out on a home game because of a massive snow storm, had another game severely disrupted by another storm, and very nearly had a player die on the field in another game. Nobody is going to attach any asterisks to a hypothetical championship. This team will have overcome plenty if they reach that goal.

I'm not the first person to notice this, but the math doesn't work for that. You'd have 5 teams in the divisional round.

Thanks. This helps a lot. Obviously we play to win in that case.

Sure, but we would still be ahead of CIN in winning % now that the MNF game has been a no-contest. Some Bengals fans will be a salty over that, just like some of our fans will be salty if KC is handed the #1 seed. Tough. I promise not to complain if we're somewhat disadvantaged, and my expectation for the Bengals is the same.

Do we even have any way of determining that? I notice a lot of posts all of the sudden sound like the league made some kind of announcement on how playoff seeding is going to work, but I haven't seen anything definitive yet. If they do just go by flat winning %, then you're probably right. It's going to be hard for us to be tied with anybody after week 18 other than the Bengals of course.

I imagine the league will resolve this when they get around to making a decision about how playoff seeding is going to work. If they go by winning percentage, we would finish ahead of KC in the scenario that you described, 81% to 76%.

If the game is actually meaningless, then yeah sure rest as many starters as you can. Allen doesn't need to be playing a game just for practice. This would be SOP for any team in that situation.

I gotta say, it's only been in the past few years that I realized just how small a world the NFL is. These guys all seem to know each other. We've seen that play out in the FA market, but it's also pretty clear our QB is highly respected around the league. Of course some of that is just game recognizing game, but players notice stuff like this too.

It's honestly amazing that we went from Rex Ryan (!) to this. Setting aside this whole episode for a moment, the culture of this team is just night and day different from what it was before McDermott (and, to be fair, Beane) arrived. This is what leadership looks like. Obviously this team also has a strong cohort of leaders in the locker room. But it starts with the HC.

Last year the offense pitched a perfect game. This year it's the defense's turn. Every possession is a 3-and-out.

He's still playing with broken ribs, right? You guys might both be correct -- he might be a marginal starter next year, but he's awful right now.

A bunch of keyboard warriors spent the last couple of days scolding people over caring about football. Meanwhile the first thing the injured player asks about is football.

Cancelling the game was a good first step. Resuming the game was always a terrible option and should have been ruled out first thing Tuesday morning. No announcement on the playoffs signals to me that the league is going to pick one of the dumb-but-there's-money-to-be-made options. If they were just going to go by win percentage (or whatever) and call it good, they could have announced that at the same time. The fact that they didn't suggests that they're trying to get their ducks in a row for a complicated change to the calendar.

No offense to Daboll or Sirianni, but no NFC coach deserves COY for putting up wins in that sorry conference. We all know that you can only play the teams on your schedule, but we don't have to hand out awards for it either. It's never too early to be drunk, but it's too early to be this drunk.

I mean, as long as FIFA exists the NFL never needs to worry about being the most evil sports league. But it's very on-brand for the NFL to turn a personal tragedy into a money-making opportunity.