The Cincinnati Bengals are unhappy with the updated NFL playoff scenarios that were released Thursday night.
While they have every reason to feel that way, the team ended up losing the fight to the NFL on Friday.
After officially canceling the Bills’ Week 18 game at the Bengals, the NFL needed to map out what Week 18 would look like for the Bengals, Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs. All three teams had a lot on the line going into 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. By default, when the NFL declared that the Bengals would only play 16 games this year, the Bengals became the AFC North champions regardless of what happened in Sunday’s game.
The reason is that the overall record is the first determining factor in division titles. If the Bengals win, they’ll be 12-4 and the Ravens 10-7. If the Ravens win and the Bengals lose, the Bengals will be 11-5 and the Ravens 11-6.
The new NFL landscape plays a big role in how the playoffs might go for the Bengals and is not favorable for Cincinnati. As it stands today, in the NFL rulebook, if a game is called off, the winning percentage determines the playoff ranking. However, the league owners voted on the proposed new scenarios on Friday and the Bengals fell short.
Here is the NFL’s competitive policy for canceled games.
“If a game is cancelled, a team’s position in its division or conference (eg Wild Card qualification in the playoffs or position in the playoff standings) will be determined based on its final record. When necessary, playoff tiebreakers will be averaged 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 layer that is unfavorable to the Bengals.
The new NFL proposal states that if the Bengals lose to the Ravens in Week 18 and if those two clubs are scheduled to play a Wild Card game against each other, which is highly likely, the venue for that game would be determined by lot. That means the Bengals could be the AFC North champions on paper and not have the benefit of hosting a playoff game like every other division winner.
That’s why the Bengals fought so 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. “When a game is cancelled, just turning to the winning percentage clears it up so we don’t have to make up rules. There are 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 rulebook. So now, when we pointed out the rules and you said let’s change that, I don’t want to hear about fair and just when that’s the case.
The NFL called a special meeting with owners on Friday morning after announcing the proposals. For the proposals to pass, the league needed 24 votes. Twenty-five owners voted in favor. The Bengals needed nine votes in their favor for the proposal to fail and for it to be redrafted and amended.
Bengals Executive Vice President Katie Blackburn is on the league’s Competition Committee and reportedly sent a memo to the rest of the league urging them to vote on Cincinnati’s behalf.
Taylor was pleased to see his estate fight hard for his team.
“They are protecting this team,” he said. “It’s important for the team to know that because someone has to fight for you. It’s clearly not coming from the league. It’s nice to have our ownership and front office supporting the players like they have. This is important to us.”
The new playoff scenario is unquestionably not fair to the Bengals, but all that won’t matter if the Bengals win on Sunday.
None of what happened this week was fair to anyone, though. Had Cincinnati beaten the Bills and Ravens, yes, they would have become the AFC’s No. 2 seed with a chance of reaching the top, but there’s no telling if that would have happened.
There was always a chance that Cincinnati would have to go to the divisional round. What no one ever believed could happen is that the Bengals, at 11-4, would lose home field advantage in the Wild Card round and that is now in question.
And as Taylor said, the Bengals can avoid all of that if they just win. That’s what they’re focused on moving forward.
“It seems like there are positives for a lot of teams and only negatives for us,” said Taylor. “So we have an opportunity to flip a coin that can only negatively impact us. We don’t have the opportunity to play for a coin toss that impacts us positively. Again, let’s just follow the rules and accept that. We just have to turn our focus to getting ready for Baltimore and doing everything we can to control what we can control at that time.”