CINCINNATI — When the NFL released its proposed playoff schedule alterations and contingencies Thursday night, Bengals coaches, staff and players couldn’t believe it. <\/p>\n
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?<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
That didn’t sit right with Bengals head coach Zac Taylor. <\/p>\n
“Well, you just want to clarify where it stands and what\u2019s in front of us. What\u2019s in front of us is to win this weekend and reclaim the opportunity to have a home-field wild-card game,” Taylor said. “That\u2019s the task that\u2019s at hand in front of the team. As far as I\u2019m 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\u2019t have to make up the rules. There\u2019s 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\u2019s black and white in the rule book. <\/p>\n
“So, now, when we point out the rules and you are told we are going to change that, I don\u2019t 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.”<\/p>\n
The response from Rich McKay, chairman of the NFL Competition Committee?<\/p>\n
“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? <\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
\nRich 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<\/a><\/p>\n
— Mike Petraglia (@Trags) January 6, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n