NFL mulling Bills-Bengals options, including not finishing game or pushing schedule into bye week before Super Bowl

In the wake of the hospitalization of Buffalo Charges protection Damar Hamlin through Monday Night time Soccer, NFL vice president of operations Troy Vincent said the league is leaving all possibilities on the table about the schedule. That could incorporate pushing the meeting title games into the bye 7 days before the Tremendous Bowl, which Vincent did not rule out through a meeting phone with reporters on Wednesday.

Very first and foremost, Vincent reported the league has been examining in with the Payments and head mentor Sean McDermott to gauge the team’s state of mind and supply whatever resources are required as the crew processes Hamlin’s fight and proceeds to aid his loved ones. But Vincent extra that there will be a time in the near long run when the league commences an try at shaping the remainder of the Bills’ timetable, like each the postponed sport against the Cincinnati Bengals and the 7 days 18 video game against the New England Patriots. As of early Wednesday, individuals steps experienced not been taken.

“We have not had that dialogue,” Vincent claimed of the Bills’ 7 days 18 recreation from New England, which is officially scheduled to kick off Sunday at 1 p.m. ET. “It’s seriously significant that we just retain the pulse of the coach and the players and really don’t get in front of that. We’ll allow Sean [McDermott] and his staff and his team and his players — which are the most significant thing in this article — to tutorial this if we have to make that selection collectively with the club.”

The Charges returned to exercise Wednesday. They took the area this morning just after the crew figured out that Hamlin has experienced some “improvement” in his situation, despite the fact that the precise character of that remains non-public. Hamlin continues to be in the intensive care device at the College of Cincinnati Clinical Middle. The Bills’ counterpart in the Monday night time game, the Bengals, will participate in Sunday versus the Baltimore Ravens.

How and when the Bills and Bengals will make up Monday’s postponed sport remains unresolved. There are two possible benefits in engage in: The recreation will not be played or recognized as a accomplished contest, leaving equally franchises with a 16-game period and getting their playoff seeding determined by win proportion or the sport will be scheduled in what amounts to a “Week 19,” in which the overall playoff routine is pushed again a person 7 days as the Expenditures and Bengals finish out their year.

Tale carries on

In that latter scenario, the playoffs would be pushed into the Tremendous Bowl’s bye 7 days, ensuing in conference title online games being played one 7 days prior to the Tremendous Bowl, relatively than the existing two months.

Component of the template for all of this has been how the league dealt with the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic year, which tackled various eventualities if groups could not entire their seasons or the Tremendous Bowl’s bye 7 days required to be used for a scheduling unexpected emergency during the playoffs.

“The guiding ideas that took us into the 2020 period with COVID [are on the table].” Vincent said. “It may not be great, but will enable those people taking part to be capable to participate in.”