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

[LabattBlue]

1 hour ago, D. L. Hot-Flamethrower said:

It sounds, from Sheffter, that an idea may be gaining traction on giving the highest W% the choice of a bye or homefield. And, of course the remaining #2 W% would get the other unchosen option. Not bad

So how would the seedings look like for the remainder of the playoffs?

[Buffalo03]

The NFL's best option is to wait until Sunday and then decide. All 3 games KC vs Raiders, Patriots vs Bills and Ravens vs Bengals will all be done by 4:25 Sunday which gives the league plenty of time before the Sunday night game to make any last minute changes to the playoffs since the matchups will have to be done by the end of the SNF game. If the Chiefs, Bills and Bengals all win, then I think playing the Bills vs Bengals game becomes a must and will happen. There is too much on the line at that point to be a no contest or a coin flip. The other thing to look at is, both the Bills and Bengals beat the Chiefs this year so rewarding the Chiefs with the one seed without playing the game is insane 

Edited January 5, 2023 by Buffalo03

[T.E.]

6 minutes ago, chongli said:

 

Do you seriously expect them to carry on after they saw their teammate need CPR to resuscitate him? This applies to any workplace environment. The Bills should not be penalized for this unfortunate incident.

No, I have said multiple times that they made the right call. Some of you have deluded yourself into thinking the Bills should be rewarded for the incident, though (e.g. giving both teams a win for the game). That's not going to happen, nor should it.

[SoCal Deek]

Just now, Buffalo03 said:

The NFL's best option is to wait until Sunday and then decide. All 3 games KC vs Raiders, Patriots vs Bills and Ravens vs Bengals will all be done by 4:25 Sunday which gives the league plenty of time before the Sunday night game to make any last minute changes to the playoffs since the matchups will have to be done by the end of the SNF game. If the Chiefs, Bills and Bengals all win, then I think playing the Bills vs Bengals game becomes a must and will happen. There is too much on the line at that point to be a no contest or a coin flip

I could not agree more. Everything else is based on speculation. Play this week’s games and make a decision based on the results. The Bills and Bengals will be given the opportunity to decide what they want to do. 

[wakingfane]

It wouldn't be that unreasonable to not play the rest of the game and then decide all AFC rankings just for this year based on number of losses as the initial ranking criteria instead of win percentage. Then proceed with the usual tiebreakers from there.

[LabattBlue]

2 minutes ago, wakingfane said:

It wouldn't be that unreasonable to not play the rest of the game and then decide all AFC rankings just for this year based on number of losses as the initial ranking criteria instead of win percentage. Then proceed with the usual tiebreakers from there.

Let me guess who ends up with the #1 seed in this scenario? 😂

[chongli]

15 minutes ago, Patrick Fitzryan said:

No, I have said multiple times that they made the right call. Some of you have deluded yourself into thinking the Bills should be rewarded for the incident, though (e.g. giving both teams a win for the game). That's not going to happen, nor should it.

 

But neither should they be penalized by losing a game.

[BillsFanSD]

20 minutes ago, Buffalo03 said:

The NFL's best option is to wait until Sunday and then decide. All 3 games KC vs Raiders, Patriots vs Bills and Ravens vs Bengals will all be done by 4:25 Sunday which gives the league plenty of time before the Sunday night game to make any last minute changes to the playoffs since the matchups will have to be done by the end of the SNF game. If the Chiefs, Bills and Bengals all win, then I think playing the Bills vs Bengals game becomes a must and will happen. There is too much on the line at that point to be a no contest or a coin flip. The other thing to look at is, both the Bills and Bengals beat the Chiefs this year so rewarding the Chiefs with the one seed without playing the game is insane 

This is 100% bush league.  A basic, fundamental principle of decision-making in competitive situations is that you have a rule that everybody knows up front, and you follow it.  Waiting to see how things shake out and then backwards-engineering a rule based on the results is the exact opposite of what we should expect from middle schoolers, let alone professional adults running a multi-billion dollar business.

[zow2]

1 hour ago, Sammy Watkins' Rib said:

 

Cincy gets just as great a negative outcome as Buffalo, because let's face it, very real chance the Bills were going to lose to the Bengals the other night. So now instead of the Bills / Bengals divisional round rematch being in Cincinatti, it will be in Buffalo.

 

 

 

Yes, IF the Bengals won they could have leapfrogged the Bills.  No doubt about it, that is a negative. But there is a reasonable chance had the Hamlin situation had not occurred, the Bills could have won.  We see it all the time where one team comes out hot and eventually the other team comes back (especially a very good team like Buffalo).  So the positive for the Bengals is that they are given the AFC North in the scenario discussed.  Baltimore is not given the chance to win that division so Cincinnati could change their in game strategy if they so choose, depending on how the KC game unfolded and how the Bills game is going.  

[LabattBlue]

In the rules for next year and going forward, it needs to state “in the event of all teams not playing an equal number of games, winning percentage will be used in place of wins and losses”. 
 

Unfortunately for this year, no matter what they choose as the solution because it is being decided at this late point in the season, someone will be crying foul.  

[Buffalo03]

5 minutes ago, BillsFanSD said:

This is 100% bush league.  A basic, fundamental principle of decision-making in competitive situations is that you have a rule that everybody knows up front, and you follow it.  Waiting to see how things shake out and then backwards-engineering a rule based on the results is the exact opposite of what we should expect from middle schoolers, let alone professional adults running a multi-billion dollar business.

Dude, this is ridiculous. Waiting until Sunday is the best outcome. Canceling the game beforehand is way to premature

[D. L. Hot-Flamethrower]

6 minutes ago, BillsFanSD said:

This is 100% bush league.  A basic, fundamental principle of decision-making in competitive situations is that you have a rule that everybody knows up front, and you follow it.  Waiting to see how things shake out and then backwards-engineering a rule based on the results is the exact opposite of what we should expect from middle schoolers, let alone professional adults running a multi-billion dollar business.

Agree the league won't do that either

[T.E.]

24 minutes ago, BillsFanSD said:

This is 100% bush league.  A basic, fundamental principle of decision-making in competitive situations is that you have a rule that everybody knows up front, and you follow it.  Waiting to see how things shake out and then backwards-engineering a rule based on the results is the exact opposite of what we should expect from middle schoolers, let alone professional adults running a multi-billion dollar business.

This is the Goodell way. Indecisive about any choice needed to be made before arbitrarily pulling a decision out of his ass on the fly.

 

That being said, it is still truly insane that they don't have some concrete rule regarding a game that cannot be played or made-up. An injury like we saw on Monday is extremely rare, but something like lightning taking out power in a stadium wouldn't be a wild occurrence. An event like that happening in the last week of the season would put them in a similar predicament.

[SoCal Deek]

28 minutes ago, BillsFanSD said:

This is 100% bush league.  A basic, fundamental principle of decision-making in competitive situations is that you have a rule that everybody knows up front, and you follow it.  Waiting to see how things shake out and then backwards-engineering a rule based on the results is the exact opposite of what we should expect from middle schoolers, let alone professional adults running a multi-billion dollar business.

In general that’s true, but in this particular case don’t all the teams still want to/need to win this weekend? Seems to me there’s no harm in deciding afterwards. Heck, the entire playoff picture is decided after this weekend…not just the Bills seeding. 

[Buffalo03]

34 minutes ago, BillsFanSD said:

This is 100% bush league.  A basic, fundamental principle of decision-making in competitive situations is that you have a rule that everybody knows up front, and you follow it.  Waiting to see how things shake out and then backwards-engineering a rule based on the results is the exact opposite of what we should expect from middle schoolers, let alone professional adults running a multi-billion dollar business.

And what do you mean backwards engineering a rule? No rule has been made yet?

[Einstein's Dog]

4 minutes ago, Buffalo03 said:

And what do you mean backwards engineering a rule? No rule has been made yet?

He means making up a rule after the results are in.  You shouldn't do that, and certainly not an enterprise with as much money at stake as the NFL.

 

 

[SoCal Deek]

2 minutes ago, Einstein's Dog said:

He means making up a rule after the results are in.  You shouldn't do that, and certainly not an enterprise with as much money at stake as the NFL.

 

 

In what scenario do the Bills, Chiefs and Bengals all not want to win this weekend? 

[Buffalo03]

2 minutes ago, Einstein's Dog said:

He means making up a rule after the results are in.  You shouldn't do that, and certainly not an enterprise with as much money at stake as the NFL.

 

 

What exactly is wrong with it? They adjusted for covid and after 9/11. And in order to backwards engineer a rule, a rule has to be in place first. They have made no ruling on the game yet except that it is still suspended. Now if they ruled to cancel and went back on their rule then that's different. I see no issue with seeing how things play out. Nothing wrong with that whatsoever. People are sensitive as hell

[Einstein's Dog]

4 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

In what scenario do the Bills, Chiefs and Bengals all not want to win this weekend? 

With win percentage.  Which should have already been on the books as a rule.  

 

The NFL just went through Covid and was lucky the last week wasn't hit hard before.  They should have thought of it then and put it into the books.  You can make games up early on, but at the end it just doesn't work.

[SoCal Deek]

Just now, Einstein's Dog said:

With win percentage.  Which should have already been on the books as a rule.  

 

The NFL just went through Covid and was lucky the last week wasn't hit hard before.  They should have thought of it then and put it into the books.  You can make games up early on, but at the end it just doesn't work.

Win percentage? How about uniform color? While I understand the principle….win percentage is not a tie breaker in the NFL.