The one seed means significantly different things before and after they changed the rules (again, a week before the playoffs), which is something you continue to ignore conveniently.

Explaining what? You haven't made a lick of sense here and you continue to ignore the fact that the league went outside its rulebook to help one team and one team only.

I get your argument, but you can’t say “no good reason they had for not doing so” part is wild to read.

Their safety ****ing DIED in front of the team and had to have his ribs broken in front of them to save his life.

KC will get the bye and the huge advantage of Cincy and Buffalo having to play each other while winning 2 playoff games just for the right to play against KC in a neutral site.

I think that’s a fair situation, everything considered.

they didn't "come out" the best you asshat

they weren't given this

buffalo forfeited the game so the chiefs should win the #1 seed with a W Sunday

instead Buffalo came out benefitting and everyone else gets shit on.

the fact you don't see this just means you don't know shit

I don't ignore that at all. I am not saying this is a better situation that if none of this had ever happened.

I am the one who is grounded in reality knowing that the system was going to be changed. Something altered the state of play and their solution for that problem favors the Chiefs more than it does the Bills and Bengals.

And it is obvious.

oh great more ****ing idiots flocking in to defend this utterly indefensible bullshite

"something altered the state of play"

lolol

yeah a team forfeited and then didn't get an L

Everyone talking “matchups” has overlooked the fact this is setting up for Chargers/Chiefs part 3.
Not ideal…
Bolts peaking at right time and healthy. They will draw Titans or Jags. Cakewalk for them.

Your assumptions don't mean shit. Nobody knows who pawnmower is or cares about his opinion.

You guys are spinning your tires wishing something that has already been decided did not get decided.

The reality is this is the solution that will probably be used for this situation. And in this set up the Chiefs made out better than the Bills and much better than the Bengals.

No silly things you want to say about me or soccer change that.

Jaguars are not a cakewalk for anyone right now.

you are so mad

Are we boiled down to 2 groups here?

Those that think a player dying on the field and getting CPR for 9 minutes to bring him back to life should be treated the same as a torn Achilles/spinal injury, etc.

Or

Those that think this situation was outside the realm of what the rule book covers and a unique alteration was needed to compensate for this unique situation.

I hope your boyfriend gets mad at you for blowing your load too fast and corner kicks your tiny scrotum

What if we think it was OK to pause the game Monday night, but it should have been played on Tuesday or Wednesday?

For once I agree with Florio:

As Commissioner Roger Goodell acknowledged in a statement issued on Thursday, “there is no perfect solution” to the cancellation of the Bills-Bengals game. However, the NFL’s Policy Manual for Member Clubs, Game Operations 2022 Edition already has contemplated the imperfect process that will apply in the event a game is cancelled.

Playoff seeding is determined by winning percentages.

That applies to any cancellation of a game, whether in Week One or Week 18 or any week in between. The Bills-Bengals game was indeed cancelled. The league previously created a specific rule that applies to the cancellation of games.

Fair or not, that’s the rule. The NFL is now proposing to ownership an impromptu change to the rules. That’s why 24 owners must approve of this adjustment to the applicable protocol, during the season.

The Bengals, one of the teams directly affected by the proposal on which the owners will vote on Friday, have emphasized this point.

“The proper process for making rule change is in the off-season,” executive V.P. Katie Blackburn wrote in a memo obtained by ESPN.com. “It is not appropriate to put teams in a position to vote for something that may introduce bias, favor one team over another or impact their own situation when the vote takes place immediately before the playoffs.”

The mere fact that a game is canceled, whatever the reason, is highly unusual. It hasn’t happened in a non-strike year since 1935. Whether due to weather or illness or injury or any other extraordinary factor that would keep a game from being played, the league has already determined the approach that will apply.

Frankly, this should have been simple. It shouldn’t have taken multiple days to figure it out. It shouldn’t have required memos and meetings and conversations and backroom deals and efforts to drop grains of rice on the two sides of the scale in order to balance out any potential inequity. The rule is the rule. If a game is canceled, playoff seeding is determined by winning percentage, without neutral sites or coin flips or any other proposal that was discussed or raised or considered, from adding an eighth team to neutralize the benefit of a bye that was obtained unfairly to the arguably kooky notion that the Chiefs, if they beat the Raiders on Saturday, would have had to choose between taking a week off or having home-field advantage in an AFC Championship against the Bills or Bengals.

The league can now claim that the various possibilities that were discussed or raised or considered actually weren’t. The truth is that no other possibilities should have been considered, because there’s already a rule that provides the answer to the question.

Instead, the owners will consider on Friday the ultra-extraordinary step of changes the rules DURING a season. Time and again during the two-plus decades PFT has been in existence, it has been explained that rules deemed to be inappropriate or unfair would not be changed during the season. When voting tomorrow, the owners need to realize the unprecedented nature of the step they’d be taking.

Frankly, the currently proposed approach falls squarely into the category of “making it up as we go.” If the league wanted to have the flexibility to fashion an outcome based on the specific facts of a given case (as it’s doing here), the rules would provide for that. They don’t.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s the right decision or the best of various bad options. There’s a rule on the books. The owners will be considering a change to that rule, during a season.

They have the power to do it, obviously. But everyone needs to understand what this means. Settled, codified rules don’t matter during a given season, if 24 owners suddenly decide they no longer matter. The owners need to be prepared to cross that Rubicon when voting on the proposals they’ll consider on Friday.

It doesn’t matter that the Competition Committee voted in favor of the proposed change. The owners can, and do, reject proposals made by the Competition Committee in the offseason.

It also doesn’t matter that some teams harbor resentment (and they do) toward Bengals owner Mike Brown, who has a habit of voting against proposals on which the vast majority of other clubs agree. Some may be tempted to “stick it” to Brown by approving a rule that, even if the Bengals have a better winning percentage than the Ravens, a head-to-head sweep by Baltimore would result in a coin toss to determine home field, if the two teams are set to play each other in the wild-card round.

The league often justifies the imposition of punishment by explaining that the actions of a team or a person undermine the integrity of the game, and public confidence in professional football. Before ignoring previously-crafted rules in favor of something that seems to better address a given set of facts, the owners need to ask themselves whether that action, in and of itself, undermines the integrity of the game, and/or public confidence in professional football.

Again, they can do whatever at least 24 of them want to do. But they need to realize the broader impact of what they’d be doing.

Once this starts, where does it end? Would the owners change the rules regarding roughing the passer during a season? Would they make pass inference a 15-yard penalty and not a spot foul during a season? Would they alter the overtime rules during a season?

This isn’t about fairness or unfairness to the Chiefs, Bills, Ravens, or Bengals. It’s about whether the rules on the books will remain on the books until a given season ends. If the rules are going to change during a given season, that potentially changes everything.