my guess for the week 18 sch
- Thread starter j-man
- Start date
If the teams were going to do that, they would just refuse to play. Not really much the league office could/would do if both teams say no.
Monday is the NCAA championship.
This. 1000x this. NFL needs to work on the schedules etc. but main focus is still on Hamlin's health.
Two years ago they adjusted the schedule seemingly every week due to covid. They played games Tuesdays, Wednesdays, whatever. Games are moved from city to city for weather/availability reasons also. Surely they can figure out when and where to play this game, if the decision is made to play it.
The Bills are reportedly split between being in Cincy and in Buffalo. They probably need a day or so to even get organized as a team to play. I would think the earliest they could play is Thursday. Then they would have to bump their week 18 games until Tuesday of next week. Then they would have to figure out the WC weekend because the Bills, Patriots, Bengals and Ravens (the 4 teams potentially playing on Tuesday) could have to play WC weekend. They would have to make sure those teams WC game was either Sunday or Monday. That would probably require some horse-trading with the networks based on the timeslots. Fox would get an AFC game, CBS pick up an NFC game, etc.
I think the only viable options are adding a week 19 or the Bills and Bengals agreeing to a tie and playing week 18 as is
Edit: Moving this from the Hamlin thread
I think the only viable options are adding a week 19 or the Bills and Bengals agreeing to a tie and playing week 18 as is
Edit: Moving this from the Hamlin thread
This is one of those situations where I'd really, really, REALLY hope that everyone involved - the NFL, the networks, everyone - would be willing to be flexible and not say, screw you, we have a contract for such and such game.
I know that may be wishful thinking, but if ever there was a time for people to do the right thing, even if it costs them something, it's now.
I know that may be wishful thinking, but if ever there was a time for people to do the right thing, even if it costs them something, it's now.
If I’m not mistaken, I believe that calling the game a tie or no contest hands the Bengals the AFC North.
I would imagine Baltimore wants that game to be played out. It’s a tricky spot no matter what way you cut it.
In terms of the scheduling, this is an insuperable obstacle, because in the end, it's money that matters most in sports that are televised.
It does, it also hands KC control of the #1 seed. Which then impacts the WC race because KC could wrap it up on Saturday.
It's not fair but I could see the Bengals and Bills players agreeing to it if the league tries to get them to play within the next 2-3 days and refuses to add a week 19.
Edit: To me, the only fair option is adding a week 19.
The NFL can't do anything about Hamlin's health at this point. They can' get their schedule straightened out.
I think I'd just skip this game entirely. Bills and Bengals will finish with 16 games played; playoff seeding implications of that just are what they are.
I think I'd just skip this game entirely. Bills and Bengals will finish with 16 games played; playoff seeding implications of that just are what they are.
From a technical perspective, I’m not sure Goodell has the authority to declare a tie, even with the consent of the teams. I’m not sure if the Competition Committee could pass a rule change broadening Goodell’s authority with retroactive effect, either. Anyways, this is fundamentally a political issue for the league. They’ll need to get any teams affected by a declared tie or cancellation to not fight it publicly.
From Rule 17:
(…)
ARTICLE 4. EMERGENCY SITUATIONS. The NFL affirms the position that in most circumstances all regular-season and postseason games should be played to their conclusion. If, in the opinion of appropriate League authorities, it is impossible to begin or continue a game due to an emergency, or a game is deemed to be imminently threatened by any such emergency (e.g., severely inclement weather, lightning, flooding, power failure), the following procedures (Articles 5 through 11) will serve as guidelines for the Commissioner and/or the duly appointed representatives. The Commissioner has the authority to review the circumstances of each emergency and to adjust the following procedures in whatever manner the Commissioner deems appropriate. If, in the Commissioner’s opinion, it is reasonable to project that the resumption of an interrupted game would not change its ultimate result or adversely affect any other inter-team competitive issue, the Commissioner is empowered to terminate the game.
‘ARTICLE 5. LEAGUE AUTHORITY. The League employees vested with the authority to define emergencies under these procedures are the Commissioner, designated representatives from the League office staff, and the game Referee. In those instances where neither the Commissioner nor the designated representative is in attendance at a game, the Referee will have sole authority; provided, however, that if the Referee delays the beginning of or interrupts a game for a significant period of time due to an emergency, the Referee must make every effort to contact the Commissioner or the Commissioner’s designated representative for consultation. In all cases of significant delay, the League authorities will consult with the management of the participating clubs and will attempt to obtain appropriate information from outside sources, if applicable (e.g., weather bureau, police).
ARTICLE 6. LATER DATE. If, because of an emergency, a regular-season or postseason game is not started at its scheduled time and cannot be played at any later time that same day, the game nevertheless must be played on a subsequent date to be determined by the Commissioner.
ARTICLE 7. PRE-GAME THREAT. If there is deemed to be a threat of an emergency that may occur during the playing of a game (e.g., an incoming tropical storm), the starting time of such game will not be moved to an earlier time unless there is clearly sufficient time to make an orderly change.
ARTICLE 8. INTERRUPTED GAME. If, under emergency circumstances, an interrupted regular-season or post-season game cannot be completed on the same day, such game will be rescheduled by the Commissioner and resumed at that point.
ARTICLE 9. ALTERNATE DATES, SITES. In instances under these emergency procedures which require the Commissioner to reschedule a regular-season game, the Commissioner will make every effort to set the game for no later than two days after its originally scheduled date, and will attempt to schedule the game at its original site. If unable to do so, the Commissioner will schedule it at the nearest available facility. If it is impossible to schedule the game within two days after its original date, the Commissioner will be guided by the Emergencies and Unfair Acts provisions in the Policy Manual for Member Clubs: Game Operations.
ARTICLE 10. POSTSEASON INTERRUPTION. If an emergency interrupts a postseason game and such game cannot be resumed on that same date, the Commissioner will make every effort to arrange for its completion as soon as possible. If unable to schedule the game at the same site, the Commissioner will select an appropriate alternate site. The Commissioner will terminate the game short of completion only, if in the Commissioner’s judgment, the continuation of the game would not be normally expected to alter the ultimate result.
ARTICLE 11. GAME RESUMPTION. In all instances where a game is resumed after interruption, either on the same date or a subsequent date, the resumption will begin at the point at which the game was interrupted. At the time of interruption, the Referee will call timeout and will make a record of the following: the team possessing the ball, direction in which its offense was headed, position of the ball on the field, down, distance, period, time remaining in the period, and any other pertinent information required for an efficient and equitable resumption of play.’
In the other thread there was some discussion about the NFL and its agreement not to schedule games over NCAA games and the impact that might have on a Monday game next week. Best I could find googling was that the agreement Rozelle made with Congress way back when was to not schedule games on Fridays or Saturdays to protect high school and college football, which would mean that they could play on Monday. I agree they won't schedule a head-to-head game because the networks would go ballistic if eyeballs were split between the two games, but I do think a potential Monday afternoon game could be doable if my understanding of the limitations the NFL has in terms of schedule games are correct.
Thanks. I just kind of assume there's a God rule in there somewhere and Goodell can do whatever he wants. Or they'll just ignore the rules, procedures and protocols they have in place and make it up as they go.
No team is going to complain if Goodell declares a tie. Doing so would be - and rightfully so - a PR nightmare.
No one is going to challenge it so Goodell can do whatever he thinks best. I'm sure he'll vet any decision he makes with a lot of different stakeholders.
Lot of other questions if Hamlin's condition doesn't stabilize in the near future but hopefully we won't get there.
I’m not gonna dive into contractual/statutory construction principles to pick apart the rule text because I get enough of that day to day, but there’s enough daylight in the rule text for team(s) to challenge Goodell if he tried to declare a tie or terminate the game.
The ugly scenario would be if a team called out the league for not pushing back games as needed, not the team putting its chips on a technical argument that the Commissioner lacks the authority to declare a tie/cancellation. The latter would not happen.
But as I said, the NFL would smooth all of this over before Goodell declared a tie/cancellation.
The Pats control their destiny, so pushing back our game won’t matter toooo much. Only difference is Pats might (unlikely) have the benefit of resting players if Miami, Pitt, and Titans all lose. But it seems like maybe the best solution.
I think it’s a lot more likely Goodell insists they play a game and if Buffalo and/or Cincy decide to forfeit, they go with that as opposed to declaring the game a tie.
I think that if Buffalo decided to forfeit, they would be willingly handing over the 1 seed to KC. Baltimore does still take it on the chin a little, but it’s a lot more understandable in that scenario than the league stepping in and handing Cincy the title and KC the 1 seed.
I think that if Buffalo decided to forfeit, they would be willingly handing over the 1 seed to KC. Baltimore does still take it on the chin a little, but it’s a lot more understandable in that scenario than the league stepping in and handing Cincy the title and KC the 1 seed.
They could also get the benefit of facing a resting Buffalo team depending on what happens with the suspended game. If it's a tie/not recorded/forfeit then Buffalo could be eliminated from the #1 seed if the Chiefs win on Saturday. Especially if they push the Bills/Pats game back and there's less time before WC weekend.
More likely scenario would be Week 18 being split up. So the networks still have football to show. Some games this week. Some next week. Maybe NFC games + BUF/CIN this week and AFC games NEXT WEEK.
Then push the playoffs back a week, eliminating the Super Bowl bye
I think it's probably easier to play week 18 as scheduled and play just this game week 19, but I'm not sure putting that level of spotlight on making up this game is fair to the players and I think that should be as serious a consideration as the competitive aspects if not moreso.
NFL won't run their game head to head with the CFP Championship, but I don't think they'd hesitate to play Monday afternoon if it made sense. I think they'd probably prefer that anyway. And if ESPN is going to broadcast the rest of it, obviously they would too.
What's the money at stake? The ticket sales, but what else? The NFL gets a cut of the gambling houses' cut? Is ESPN going to ask for 1/17th of the MNF money back? I guess I don't see why the financial benefits would overwhelm the human and logistical costs.
I think the gambling implications are pretty large. It's not just the slips people are holding on the Bengals/Bills game, those can be refunded. The larger problem is future bets involving both the Bengals, Bills and all the other teams that are impacted by the outcome.
Boomer Esiason on WFAN this morning is plugged into the league office. He was floating the possibility of playing the Buffalo/Cincy game on Monday and pushing Week 18 to January 14th/15th while taking away the CCG/SB bye week. It makes the most sense to be honest.
But is that money that's going to be lost if the NFL doesn't play the game, or just people that are going to be pissed off?
I think afternoon, before the CFP game (and maybe the CFP people agreeing to start 30-60 minutes later?) makes some sense in the hypothetical where no extra week is added.
I think part of the reason of the hour delay was to let ESPN run it's commercials. The other part was to let the logistics get in place to let 70k+ people leave safely.
It's definitely unfair but once the NFL let Buffalo leave Cincy I think only the logical thing to do at this point is to declare the game a tie and move on.
Official gaming partners will have to refund millions of dollars in bets, probably tens of millions. It's not happening. The NFL isn't going to cancel this game, they're going to play it, just a question of when.
It's not a terrible solution logistically--hard to think that many teams will have a stadium/logistical conflict on Jan 14/15 and you only have to worry about the potential stadium conflicts for the two conference championships games the SB bye week.
If there's any stadium conflicts for the championship games, I wonder if the NFL just move one of the games to SoFi Stadium since it will be under the NFL's control at that point.
To be honest if an owner has a stadium conflict for their home conference championship game I think that owner is going to pay the rodeo/pop star/whatever to come back later, and tell Taylor Swift's fans to shake it off. Very few events are truly not movetable if the owner of the stadium also owns the football team.
Quickly googling it no planned events that bye week for Bills/Arrowhead/Eagles/Chiefs. Which, yeah I guess it makes sense that there aren't a lot of events planned for February in outdoor stadiums.
To be honest, I don't know. My guess is the books will have to refund.
Probably falls under the gambling umbrella but there's probably also millions in the fantasy world at stake.
View: https://twitter.com/davidcanter/status/1610326456583983105?s=20&t=z35lXLU9Dr1Bj3BhIrPE1w
DSE represents a lot of NFL players. I'd imagine there's a similar sentiment around the league to postpone next week's games.
DSE represents a lot of NFL players. I'd imagine there's a similar sentiment around the league to postpone next week's games.
We're talking one week, this affects one week. Everyone of these stadiums would be able to make arrangements on "week 19" if their team made the playoffs.
I think I thought we were talking multiple afternoon games, so "just in case" would be my only reason.
What is the "official" result if *both* teams forfeit? Do they each get a loss? (as opposed to a tie, when each team gets half a win and half a loss).
There's more involved beyond stadium usage. Team accommodations, for instance. Then there's the issue of fans who planned to travel with their teams and might have to eat the cost on those game and travel expenses. And likely other considerations that don't immediately come to mind.
All of this could be done, but it's not easy.
Then again, none of this really matters in the scope of things, but it goes beyond just if the stadium is available
Pieces that they would happily move under different circumstances. FWIW I never questioned the ease, I just addressed the feasibility.
I think a problem with pushing everything back a week or two is that they still need to finish the Bengals/Bills game. If they go to week 19, they still need to squeeze in Bengals/Bills either this week or the week after and that pushes the whole playoff schedule even further out.
I think the NFC this week + Bengals/Bills then the AFC next week is the fairest solution. It also hinges on the willingness of the Bengals and Bills to play this weekend which they understandably may not want to do.
Say the NFL did this. If KC loses and Cincy beats Balt next week, does this game even affect anything?
My guess is if they both agreed to forfeit, they would both be assigned a loss. I would imagine it would likely be the Bills deciding to forfeit if they felt they couldn’t play this week and the NFL mandates they play.