CINCINNATI — When the NFL released its proposed playoff schedule alterations and contingencies Thursday night, Bengals coaches, staff and players couldn’t believe it.
Why would the NFL competition committee vote to ignore the rules clearly set in the NFL guidelines for playoff seeding and home field advantage and make them up on the fly?
The NFL decided, in short, to set up neutral sites for the AFC Championship round should the Bills or Bengals face the Chiefs and more controversial, establish a coin flip to determine home field between the Bengals and Ravens in a potential wild card round game, should Baltimore win Sunday at Paycor.
The reason this brought the ire of the Bengals is that the NFL changed the rules on win percentage determining home field at the 11th hour.
“I wouldn’t say we thought we were ever going get to perfection where you were going get to perfect equity,” said Rich McKay, chair of the NFL competition committee. “It would be just better for us, easier for us if we had 272 (regular season games), but it was the right thing to cancel (Bills-Bengals) and it was time of the year. So this is, this is how the proposal came about.”
That didn’t sit right with Bengals head coach Zac Taylor.
“Well, you just want to clarify where it stands and what’s in front of us. What’s in front of us is to win this weekend and reclaim the opportunity to have a home-field wild-card game,” Taylor said. “That’s the task that’s at hand in front of the team. As far as I’m concerned, we just want the rules to be followed and when a game is canceled that you just turn to winning percentage to clarify everything so we don’t have to make up the rules. There’s several instances this season where the club is fined or people in our building are fined and we are being told to follow the rules. It’s black and white in the rule book.
“So, now, when we point out the rules and you are told we are going to change that, I don’t want to hear about fair and equitable when that is the case. So what this team will do is all we can control is going into a game this weekend and doing our best to win. We are going to channel our energy into that.”
The response from Rich McKay, chairman of the NFL Competition Committee?
“In this case, we viewed it as completely extraordinary circumstances, very challenging circumstances, but extraordinary,” McKay told me. “And you know, this idea of going to 271 versus 272, you can’t, in a book, you can’t write every potential that could happen. Heck, we get this all the time in the rules book. Sadly, every once in a while, we react and we put a specific rule for a specific play. In this case, there isn’t a rule that applies to 271 versus 272. So we did view this as extraordinary circumstance, and that’s why the idea was created of should there be a neutral site option here?
“I wouldn’t say we thought we were ever gonna get to perfection where you were going to get to perfect equity. It would be just better for us, easier for us, if we had 272 (games played), but it was the right thing to cancel (Bills-Bengals) and it was time of the year. So this is, this is how the proposal came about.”
Rich McKay, Chairman of NFL Competition Committee, explains why the neutral site option was proposed instead of winning percentage under "extraordinary circumstances" pic.twitter.com/vSzTqIDB7t
— Mike Petraglia (@Trags) January 6, 2023
Still, Taylor echoed the feelings of the entire Bengals organization.
“Opportunities lost for us that we had a chance to control that now we don’t,” Taylor said. “Fine. But it seems like there are positives for a lot of teams and just negatives for us. So, we have the opportunity to play for a coin flip that can only negatively impact us. We don’t have the opportunity to play for a coin flip that positively impact us. Again, let’s just follow the rules and we accept that. We just have to turn our focus to getting ready for Baltimore and then doing everything we can to control what we can control at that point.”
The silver lining, as it has been for the last two seasons, is there’s a stronger internal bond amongst Bengals staff, coaches and players and the sense that there’s an ‘Us against the World’ mentality bigger than ever inside Paycor Stadium. That bond was only strengthened with team Executive Vice President Katie Blackburn’s message sent to the league on behalf of the team.
“Yeah, that’s awesome,” Taylor said. “They’ve got this team’s back. It’s important for the team to know that because somebody’s got to fight for you. It’s clearly not coming from the league. It’s nice to have our ownership and front office support the players like they have. That is important for us.”
Rich McKay says Katie Blackburn and the Bengals were heard from and made a strong case against the neutral site and coin flip proposals. pic.twitter.com/OJAazooNH6
— Mike Petraglia (@Trags) January 6, 2023
McKay, whose father was legendary Buccaneers head coach John McKay, has a long-standing relationship with the Mike Brown family. He said Friday that respect was a factor in making sure every Bengals’ concern was heard and considered.
“I’m very respectful of, first of all, the Bengals,” McKay said. “I’ve known the family forever. Mike Brown was on our committee for a long time. Katie’s on the committee. Katie made a presentation (Thursday) night. She made a presentation today. She’s pretty eloquent and made her points. So yeah, there was plenty given to them because they are the affected team. So you wanted to hear from them.
“I think on the neutral site situation, basically all three teams going in had a kind of agreed they were okay with that situation. It didn’t mean they were gonna vote for it, but they were okay with it. So that always obviously helps when you make a proposal like that. There was input given by Baltimore, certainly by Cincinnati. And Buffalo (Friday) opened the meeting with just kind of an update on Damar the player and how he’s doing and so forth. They didn’t say much on the proposals, but they were certainly given the opportunity.”
Doesn’t seem real:
The Bengals achieved history Thursday night when the Bills game was officially canceled. They repeated as AFC North champs, marking the first time in franchise history that the team won back-to-back division titles. Ja’Marr Chase wasn’t overwhelmed, saying, “It doesn’t seem real. It’s a hype moment but until it hits me for real (I’ll wait until) I get my hat and t-shirt.”
"We just gotta stack up the wins" Ja'Marr Chase says Bengals can't control what league decides on playoff schedule pic.twitter.com/cNYEslrgds
— Mike Petraglia (@Trags) January 6, 2023
For those who attended the game Monday night, the Bengals have established a protocol for applying for ticket refunds.
The Bills vs. Bengals game has been canceled.
See how this affects the division and visit our fan FAQ page.
— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) January 6, 2023
Defensive end Sam Hubbard is expected to return and play Sunday after missing the Patriots game on Christmas Eve with a strained left calf suffered against Tampa Bay on Dec. 18. Starting corner Eli Apple appeared on the injury report Thursday with a neck issue but is expected to play.
With Monday’s game wiped out, Joe Burrow is back to 35 touchdown passes this season, matching his club-record total from 2021. He also still needs 12 passes to break Drew Brees’ all-time completion percentage record.
