The Cincinnati Bengals were not happy with the NFL’s updated playoff scenarios released late Thursday night.
While they had every reason to feel that way, the team ultimately lost to the NFL on Friday.
After officially canceling the Week 18 Bills at Bengals game, the NFL had to map out what Week 18 would look like for the Bengals, Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs. All three teams had a lot at stake leading up to Monday’s game.
The Bengals are 11-4 and are currently a game and a half ahead of the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC North standings. When the NFL declared that the Bengals would only play 16 games this year, the Bengals became the AFC North champion by default regardless of what happens in Sunday’s game.
The reason is that the overall record is the first determinant in division titles. If the Bengals win, they’ll be 12-4 and the Ravens 10-7. If the Ravens win, the Bengals would be 11-5 and the Ravens would be 11-6.
The NFL’s new scenario plays a big part in what the playoffs could look like for the Bengals, and it doesn’t bode well for Cincinnati. As it stands today, in the NFL’s rule book, if a game is canceled, winning percentage determines playoff placement. However, the league’s owners voted on the newly proposed scenarios on Friday, and the Bengals came up short
This is the NFL’s competition policy for canceled games.
“If a game is canceled, a team’s status in its division or conference (e.g., qualification as a Wild Card in the playoffs or placement in the playoffs) will be determined based on its final results. If necessary, playoff tiebreakers will be calculated based on the average per game for all teams.”
If the Bengals beat the Ravens on Sunday, nothing will change and Cincinnati will host the Wild Card round at Paycor Stadium regardless of the opponent. Here is the low which is unfavorable to the Bengalis.
The NFL’s new proposal states that if the Bengals lose to the Ravens in Week 18 and those two clubs play a Wild Card game against each other, which is highly likely, the venue for that game will be determined by a coin toss. This means the Bengals can be AFC North champions on paper and not get the benefit of hosting a playoff game like any other division winner.
Therefore, the Bengals fought hard against the league’s proposal.
“As far as I’m concerned, we just want the rules to be followed,” said Bengals head coach Zac Taylor. “If a game is canceled, you just go to the win percentage to clarify everything so we don’t have to make up rules. There have been several instances this season where a club is fined or people in our building are fined and we are told, ‘Follow the rules. It’s black and white. It’s in the rules.’ So if we point out the rules now and you’re told we’re going to change that, I don’t want to hear about fair and equitable when that’s the case.
The NFL called a special meeting with the owners Friday morning after announcing the proposals. For the proposals to pass, the league needed 24 votes. Twenty-five owners voted in favour. The Bengals needed nine votes in their favor for the proposal to fail and be reformulated and amended.
Katie Blackburn, executive vice president of Bengal, is on the league’s league committee and reportedly sent a memo to the rest of the league urging them to vote on Cincinnati’s behalf.
Taylor was happy to see his owner fight hard for his team.
“They have this team back,” he said. “It’s important for the team to know that because someone has to fight for you. Obviously it doesn’t come from the league. It’s nice that our property and our front office support the players as they have. That’s important to us .”
The new playoff scenario is undoubtedly not fair to the Bengals, but none of this matters if the Bengals win on Sunday.
However, none of what happened this week has been fair to anyone. If Cincinnati beat the Bills and the Ravens, yes, they would have become the No. 2 in the AFC with a shot at the top seed, but there’s no way of knowing if that would have materialized.
There was always a chance that Cincinnati would have to hit the road for the division round. What no one ever believed could happen is that the Bengals, at 11-4, would ever lose home court advantage in the Wild Card round and that is now the question.
And as Taylor said, the Bengals can avoid all of this if they just win. That’s what they focus on moving forward.
“It seems there are positives for a lot of teams and only negatives for us,” said Taylor. “So we have the opportunity to play for a coin flip that can only negatively affect us. We do not have the opportunity to play for a coin flip that has a positive impact on us. Again, let’s just play by the rules and we’ll accept that. We just need to focus on preparing for Baltimore and then do everything we can to control what we can control at the time.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: AFC playoff seeding: Cincinnati Bengals lose challenge to NFL changes
