While the NFL community awaits more updates on Damar Hamlin and prays for a speedy recovery, the league is also actively working on what to do with the remainder of the regular season and subsequent postseason.
There is no precedent for what the NFL is about to face right now. According to CBS Sports Research, no NFL game has ever started, been postponed and never resumed. And there hasn’t been a season in the league since 1935 when some teams played more games than others, when Philadelphia and Boston each played 11 games in a 12-game slate with their game canceled due to inclement weather.
The simplest scheduling option for the NFL is to proceed with the entire schedule of Week 18 games that the league announced Tuesday, and then ultimately decide the Bills-Bengals game as a no contest or a tie.
“The conversation about what we’re going to do with this game has started,” Jeff Miller, NFL EVP for communications, public affairs and politics, said Wednesday afternoon. “[NFL EVP of football operations] Troy [Vincent]commissioner [Roger Goodell]some of us are involved in these talks, but they are ongoing.
“Of course we have to make a decision in the coming days about what we are going to do. But there is a lot of consideration there and a lot of people we want to consult with beforehand – including the clubs involved – this decision is final.”
While there’s no established precedent for what to do here, there is a roadmap of sorts in the form of the league’s “Emergencies and Unfair Deals Provisions in Member Club Policies Manual: Game Operations” under NFL Rules.
A source provided CBS Sports with this policy manual, which states: “[a]The authority to cancel, postpone or end games rests solely with the Commissioner.”
The handbook states that if it is impossible to reschedule the game within two days of the original date, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell would “attempt to reschedule it to Wednesday of the next calendar week.” The commissioner will take into account the potential for competitive injustices if one or both of the clubs involved have already been scheduled for a game close to Wednesday this week (e.g. a game on Monday or Thursday).”
But moving that game to next Wednesday, Jan. 11, would create the kind of competitive injustices the league hopes to avoid. The Bills and Bengals would have to play on Sunday, then play again on Wednesday, and then one or both would have to play in the wild card round over the weekend. They would play with less calm than any other playoff team, and presumably their lower-ranked opponents would play with more calm.
The NFL has been dealing with several schedule changes during the 2020 and 2021 seasons due to COVID-19. The Week 12 2020 game between the Ravens and the Steelers had to be rescheduled to a Wednesday.
“Everything is being considered and I hope to dive full steam ahead after completing this call,” Vincent said on a Zoom call with media on Wednesday. “Obviously we have to devote time to this particular area, but all those things, those guiding principles that have taken us through the 2020 season with COVID, all those things will guide us through this conversation.
“And make sure the right equity is in place. And as we’ve seen, it may lack equity, or it may not be perfect. But it will allow those who participate or who have earned that playing right to continue playing.”
The manual states that Goodell would have the authority to declare a winner based on the outcome of the game at the time of the postponement, or to sit out the game with no winner if the game cannot be completed at a later date.
With only nine minutes into the game and the Bengals leading 7-3, there was no way Goodell would or could declare the Bengals the winner. It would be unreasonable to “assume that his reinstatement would not change his ultimate outcome,” as the rulebook requires.
The manual states that if a game is stopped with no winners, Goodell would have the discretion to treat the game as a tie or determine teams’ records based on winning percentage.
“If a game is called off, a team’s division or conference placement (e.g., qualifying as a wild card in the playoffs or position in the playoff seeding) will be determined based on its final record,” it says in the manual.
It’s this option that, after speaking to sources throughout the week, seems the least disturbing. It would mean the Bills don’t have to return to Cincinnati to finish the game. It would keep the rest of the league static. The biggest question for the league would be whether a no contest or a tie is the better option.
If it is a no-contest, it would require manipulation of playoff qualification, which would be carried out by Goodell in consultation with clubs’ ownership groups.
Would AFC seeding be based on win percentage? That seems to be the clearest way forward. If the game is ruled a tie, the Bengals would be out of contention for first place, and the Chiefs could secure the top seed with a win over the Raiders on Saturday.
As Vincent said, the league is debating countless scenarios, and there are more disruptive options at play Wednesday afternoon. The league has long resisted moving its playoff calendar. Pushing the playoffs back a week in any form would either add a week’s rest for teams that didn’t earn a one-seed, or potentially eliminate a top seed of their own bye. It would also mean that both eventual Super Bowl teams would not get a week’s rest before the Arizona game, as there is next to no chance the league would postpone Super Bowl LVII on February 12.