The NFL officially canceled the Week 17 Monday Night Football game between the Bills and Bengals after it was postponed when Buffalo safety Damar Hamlin suddenly collapsed.
The two teams already clinched spots in the playoffs, but their seeds have not yet been determined.
While the league owners are set to meet on Friday to discuss playoff scenarios, per ESPN’s Dianna Russini, the NFL released the options they are considering for the AFC title game after Thursday night’s cancelation announcement.
As of now, the AFC championship game will take place at a neutral site if the two teams do not have an equal number of games played during the regular season, and if the team could have been the top seed and hosted the game if they had played 17 games. Essentially, this only matters if it involves the Bills or Bengals and the top-seeded Chiefs.
Here are the three AFC title game scenarios laid out for the option mentioned above, based on the teams’ Week 18 results.
1. Bills and Chiefs both win or both tie, a championship game between the two would be at a neutral site.
2. Bills and Chiefs both lose and Ravens win or tie, a Bills vs. Chiefs championship game would be at a neutral site.
3. Bills and Chiefs both lose and Bengals win, a Bills OR Bengals vs. Chiefs championship game would be at a neutral site.
The specific neutral site has not been determined by the league, per NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero. Additionally, the neutral site will only be utilized in the AFC championship game, not in the divisional round.
There is another situation the league owners will discuss on Friday regarding the Bengals and Ravens game on Sunday. The game was set to determine the AFC North winner, but now with Cincinnati’s 16 games played instead of 17, the Bengals will have a higher winning percentage regardless of the outcome. This means the league already declared the Bengals the AFC North champions. Even if the Ravens beat the Bengals for the second time this season, Baltimore won’t be able to host a playoff game.
So, the NFL is considering letting a coin toss determine the location of a potential wild card game between the Bengals and the Ravens. This will only be the case if the Ravens win on Sunday. Otherwise, if the Bengals win and the two teams won’t meet each other in the wild-card round, then the game sites will go on as planned.
