I am only doing this to show the amount of panic the NFL has, less than 48 hours before they are supposed to play two pivotal games on Saturday.
Pro Football Talk has reported that any number of options:
- A one-game Week 19 -- current indications are that the Bills-Bengals game will, in fact, be cancelled.
- Adding an eighth team to each conference (and they'd have to do it with both conferences -- so Philly/Dallas/SF would be pissed) -- this would require collective bargaining with the NFLPA
- A neutral-site AFC Championship if two of the Bills, Bengals, or Chiefs are involved.
- Giving Kansas City a choice if they win Saturday: If they win, they can choose either to host a potential AFC Championship Game OR the bye if they play the Bills or Bengals -- they cannot have both.
The Competition Committee is meeting as I type, according to PFT. I think people have to understand the very real possibility that, even if the players do play this weekend, there's a very real possibility that the season may have to be scuttled -- and the entire sport going with it...
Mike Florio, in a separate article, lays out all the options:
- Cancel Bills-Bengals and go forward as normal, but at that point, the Chiefs win the bye and home-field directly by beating the Raiders. The Bengals also win the AFC North and Baltimore has no relevant game. Florio sees this as the simplest solution.
- A one-game week, either Week 18 OR Week 19.
- Cancel Bills-Bengals and hold off Week 18 for a week. Florio actually sees this as probably the most attractive scenario, but it still runs into competitive problems as in #1.
- A weird kludge. Week 18 happens as normal. Then, only the NFC wild cards happen the week after, with Bills-Bengals. The next week, only the AFC wild cards happen. In both #3 and #4, the week between the conference title games and Super Bowl is scrapped -- they'd probably have to move around the Pro Bowl Games in Vegas.
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