Playoff Solutions Assuming they don’t replay the Bengals game.

[NoSaint]

2 hours ago, Chaos said:

Any solution impacts lots of people. One solution is to cancel the entire week 17 results for all games. And proceed into week 18 with everyone knowing it’s a 16 game season.  It is the fairest solution for the top of the bracket in the AFC. 

the idea of removing a random game from the chiefs makes more sense than simply week 17. Which is allegedly the nfl front running plan 

[T.E.]

1 minute ago, NoSaint said:

the idea of removing a random game from the chiefs makes more sense than simply week 17. Which is allegedly the nfl front running plan 

Removing games under any circumstances is wildly unfair to other teams and will hopefully never happen.

[since79]

2 hours ago, section122 said:

Here is an idea

 

Play this week as normal.  

 

If kc beats vegas they get a bye. Bills get the 2 and bengals the 3 seed for 1st round opponents.  If both teams win the divisional game is played in cincy as a quasi make up game. If the Bills make the afc championship game they host if not kc hosts

 

If kc loses to vegas bills bengals gets played for the 1 seed loser goes home. 7 seed plays the 8th seed that just missed and the bye is removed.

 

Nfl gets an extra playoff game, most issues get resolved with minimal disruption.

 

 

This idea is perfect provided all three teams win this weekend. The Ravens could not win division if they loose this week.

If we are forced to play the Cincinnati game and loose a bye anyway give KC the bye but not home field in AFC championship game until we see the divisional outcome.

 

If us, Cinci in divisional round, Cinci host as make up game.   If Buffalo wins that game they become one seed, if Cinci wins they are now one seed.   If Cinci had beat us this week and won Sunday they would be 1 based on current Tie breakers with a KC loss. If we had beat Cinci and win this week we would have been 1 seed, head to head with KC. 

 

If divisional round is  Buffalo or Cinci vs another opponent, KC host Championship if they advance.

 

If KC does not advance but Buffalo and Cinci do winner would host  till Championship anyway. 

 

Who host championship game.

KC if Buff or Cinci do not win in first round.  If Cinci beat Buff round 2.   KC would have been 1 if they won out and we lost.

Buffalo if they meet Cinci and beat them.  We would be 1 if we won out.

Cinci if they meet Buffalo in divisional round and win. They  would have been 2 if they beat us on Mon. And 1 if KC loose against Raiders.  Host if KC looses first playoff game anyway.  

 

 

 

This way all three teams still have path to host the championship game.  

Edited January 5, 2023 by since79

[AdamK]

1 hour ago, Kiva said:

Right. Only solution is to finish the Bengals game. There are no other options. 

Mondays game is not going to be played. The NFL is not going to adjust the playoff schedule or games. A simpler solution will prevail. 
 

[Scott7975]

15 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I really don't think it is the most fair. You give every other AFC playoff team a week's bye. 

 

The best of a bad bunch option is just to cancel that gave, leave everything else unchanged and decide seeding on conference record. 

 

Not sure that is the fairest option either considering the Bills and Bengals would have played one less game.  The game itself does have an affect on the division winner between Bengals and Ravens too no?

 

Regardless there is no completely fair option, as I mentioned earlier.  

Edited January 5, 2023 by Scott7975

[The Frankish Reich]

18 minutes ago, Patrick Fitzryan said:

Removing games under any circumstances is wildly unfair to other teams and will hopefully never happen.

Exactly. 

We understand what the rules are for making the playoffs/seeding in the playoffs before the season begins, and the key one is "the team that wins the most games wins the division/gets first seed." 

There's a special spin on that this year that isn't expressly stated in the rules (the COVID rules maybe, but I'm not sure those were made to apply to other situations): 2 teams had a game canceled (Bills/Bengals), so they weren't given the chance to garner one additional win.

So any special rule needs to: (1) preserve/credit the wins every team has accumulated; (2) figure out a way to not handicap a team that didn't have the opportunity to garner that additional win by virtue of a game cancellation. (Here it doesn't really matter what the reason was. The game was canceled. It's not the Bills fault, and it's not Tee Higgins and the Bengals fault. A horrific thing happened, and a game was canceled in the 1st quarter because of it. It wouldn't matter if it was canceled because there was an active shooter in the stadium or because there was a torrential downpour.)

 

That's why I fall back on "tied in the loss column = coin flip/lottery." Any other option tends to give an unfair advantage to one team at the expense of the others. Playoff seeding is pretty random anyway in that you can be in an awful division and get in at 9-8 or even (as it looked just a couple weeks ago) with a losing record. Schedules are unbalanced, and most of the seeding doesn't reflect true performance throughout the regular season anyway.

Edited January 5, 2023 by The Frankish Reich

[quinnearlysghost88]

If it wasn’t discussed already 

 

 

Edited January 5, 2023 by quinnearlysghost88

[Franco_92]

26 minutes ago, NoSaint said:

the idea of removing a random game from the chiefs makes more sense than simply week 17. Which is allegedly the nfl front running plan 

I think I saw Allbright walk this back a bit 

[D. L. Hot-Flamethrower]

The Bills/Bengals restart is not happening, no way, no how. Neither team will go for it, and the NFL has no taste for it interrupting playoffs. 

[Rochesterfan]

1 hour ago, Turk71 said:

Damar's survival is obviously the paramount concern right now.

 

Venturing a guess on how the NFL deals with this situation re: playoff seeding.

I think the Bills Bengals game will be considered a no contest and will not be made up. I don't see any chance of a win or loss being assigned to either team from that game.

  Win % will be used for playoff seeding and the playoffs will happen as scheduled. I don't see any chance of them moving the established playoff dates or inventing new ways of seeding the playoffs. Any other solution would be too complicated imo.

 

Plus that fits with the established rules and would be repeatable in the future for other unseen issues of this nature.

 

 

[UKBillFan]

2 minutes ago, Scott7975 said:

 

Not sure that is the fairest option either considering the Bills and Bengals would have played one less game.  The game itself does have an affect on the division winner between Bengals and Ravens too no?

 

Regardless there is no completely fair option, as I mentioned earlier.  

In terms of conference record, if the Chiefs, Bills and Bengals all win then the Chiefs would be 9-3, the Bills 9-2 and the Bengals 8-3. The Bills would have one up on the Chiefs due to head to head but the system would be potentially depriving the Bengals of a chance to get the one seed, as if they beat the Bills they’d be 9-3 after defeating both of their nearest rivals.

 

There are no set of week 18 results which would lock down the seedings, which is the issue the NFL has.

[BLeonard]

9 minutes ago, quinnearlysghost88 said:

If it wasn’t discussed already 

 

 

So, if the Chiefs get the #1 seed, they'd get two weeks off (week 19 & 20) and the Bills and Bengals have to play a playoff game the next week, while their opponent had a bye.

 

Seems unfair to the Bills and Bengals, while rewarding every other AFC team.  In that scenario it's better for the Bills and Bengals to skip the game altogether.  That way, at least their opponents in the playoffs don't get a bye, while the Bills/Bengals game is happening.

Edited January 5, 2023 by BLeonard

[Rochesterfan]

Just now, BLeonard said:

So, if the Chiefs get the #1 seed, they'd get two weeks off (week 19 & 20) and the Bills and Bengals have to play a playoff game the next week, while their opponent had a bye.

 

Seems unfair to the Bills and Bengals, while rewarding every other AFC team.

 

Yep - it is one of the worst ideas and I do not seen Buffalo or Cincinnati going for it.

 

[BLeonard]

6 minutes ago, Rochesterfan said:

 

Yep - it is one of the worst ideas and I do not seen Buffalo or Cincinnati going for it.

 

Not to mention, if KC beats the Raiders, the Bengals can't get the #1 seed regardless.  Why would they bother playing, knowing they have a playoff opponent coming off of a bye the next week whether they win or lose?

Edited January 5, 2023 by BLeonard

[Kiva]

21 minutes ago, AdamK said:

Mondays game is not going to be played. The NFL is not going to adjust the playoff schedule or games. A simpler solution will prevail. 
 

Why don’t they just cancel the game then? They want to see how this week play out. If all three teams win, they must finish the game.  Bills can’t be penalized for not finishing a game the nfl stopped. 

[D. L. Hot-Flamethrower]

5 minutes ago, Kiva said:

Why don’t they just cancel the game then? They want to see how this week play out. If all three teams win, they must finish the game.  Bills can’t be penalized for not finishing a game the nfl stopped. 

No they don't

[UKBillFan]

9 minutes ago, Kiva said:

Why don’t they just cancel the game then? They want to see how this week play out. If all three teams win, they must finish the game.  Bills can’t be penalized for not finishing a game the nfl stopped. 

Whatever happens in week 18, there will be some weight on Bills-Bengals. There is no set of outcomes where it won’t have some kind of impact on seedings.

[Cotton Fitzsimmons]

2 minutes ago, D. L. Hot-Flamethrower said:

No they don't

 

I agree... the more I have thought about it and heard more discussion today, I don't think anyone wants this game to be played. Getting the Bills/Bengals back on that same field at any point in the next week or two just isn't going to happen.

[Kiva]

1 minute ago, Cotton Fitzsimmons said:

 

I agree... the more I have thought about it and heard more discussion today, I don't think anyone wants this game to be played. Getting the Bills/Bengals back on that same field at any point in the next week or two just isn't going to happen.

As long as Bills are not penalized and they can earn 1 seed after beating the pats is all I care about.  If league figures a way, then finishing the cincy game is not required.  

[T.E.]

10 minutes ago, Kiva said:

As long as Bills are not penalized and they can earn 1 seed after beating the pats is all I care about.  If league figures a way, then finishing the cincy game is not required.  

The Bills are the ones who ultimately chose to not finish the Bengals game. This was the right call, but they cannot be rewarded with the #1 seed without finishing that game, which seems to be an unlikely outcome at this juncture. If anyone gets the short end of the stick here, it's unfortunately going to be them.