BRH

I feel like they need to select a site soon to allow teams and fans to start making contingent travel plans, as well as to iron out the millions of details that need to be attended to. So I don’t think they’ll wait to see who’s eliminated during the postseason. They may wait til after the weekend to see what’s available, but not much longer than that. Atlanta or possibly Houston seem like the likely candidates tbh. Carolina’s and New Orleans’ stadiums aren’t state of the art and the league will want to put one of its best venues on display.

Places we can probably rule out New England (may be in playoffs) New York (in playoffs) Philadelphia (in playoffs) Baltimore (may be in playoffs) Cleveland (too cold) Pittsburgh (too cold) Washington (league would never reward Snyder) Green Bay (in playoffs) Chicago (too cold) Cincinnati (in playoffs) Detroit (unavailable) Indianapolis (unavailable) Tennessee (may be in playoffs) Tampa (in playoffs) Jacksonville (may be in playoffs) Miami (may be in playoffs) Dallas (in playoffs) Minnesota (in playoffs) Denver (high altitude, too close to KC) Arizona (getting ready for SB) Vegas (too far west) LA (too far west) SF (too far west) Seattle (too far west) What’s Left Atlanta Carolina Houston New Orleans It’ll be one of these four. Carolina is the only open-air alternative. No way. Can’t get the end zones repainted in time, and getting everyone out and back in again (including the teams) would be too much of a hassle.

There’s a chance that the Cowboys may have a game to play there that day as well, so I doubt it.

Moot point now, but I was referring to the St. Louis / eastern MO fan base that is 4 or 5 hours closer to Indy. Most football fans in that area drifted to the Chiefs between the Cardinals’ and Rams’ tenure, and again after the Rams left. St. Louis wants nothing to do with those franchises in their new cities and Chicago just isn’t an option. We don’t have that kind of fan base beyond about Erie (although we do have expats everywhere).

I’m sure Terry could get Beaver Stadium freed up for this.

Don’t be deliberately obtuse. Teams want to know if they can rest their starters.

I think so too, but I also think Indy would be the worst for us. Lots of KC fans in the St. Louis area now that they don't have a team, and that's an easy drive for them. You almost have to put it somewhere where it's an equally difficult trek for both local fanbases, like Atlanta -- easily accessible by plane, not so much by car. But with the number of expat Bills fans in the Carolinas, I'd expect that place to be overrun by us.

Sssshhhhh... no one is allowed to say that the Bengals got any kind of benefit.

Teams need to know what they're playing for.

I mean, it IS in another state.

Yes. Rosen is the son of Princeton graduates and actually was seriously recruited there before ending up at UCLA. Unlike Allen, he was always going either big-time D-1 or Ivy League. On a related note, long before the term "affluenza" was invented, Pete Carril always used to say "I don't recruit three-car garage guys." Haven't read the story or seen any clips, but did anyone try to correct Crowder or give him an opportunity to correct himself?

I remember when that Jets assistant coach tripped a Dolphins' kick returner while he was running up the sideline. After the game, Crowder said, "I wish he'd have tried to trip me. I'd have broke that old man's leg."

I'm glad it's them.

Doubt that. Because a loss and a Cincy win means we would have to go back to Cincinnati for any playoff matchup. If we win, we’d host the Bengals. pretty sure the Bills don’t feel like going back to PayCor right now. now…. If it’s 41-0 at the half, then maybe. EDIT: it was the logical thing to do IMO, but good on the NFL for not giving any of these teams an incentive to rest their starters. KC has to win to get the 1 seed and the bye. Buffalo has to win to have a chance at home field or neutral turf for the AFCCG, and to play the Bengals at home. And the Bengals have to win in order to host the Ravens in the playoffs, among other things. Any number of ways the Shield could have gone that would have incentivized the Chiefs, Bills, and perhaps even the Bengals to rest their starters and mess with the other AFC teams' playoff chances.

They will, if these things happen: - Chiefs lose to Raiders - Bills lose to Pats - Bengals beat Ravens Then both teams are 12-4. Bengals get the 2 based on SOS tiebreaker and host Buffalo in any matchup. If the Bills beat the Pats, then the Bills will be 13-3 and Bengals 12-4 (or 11-5), and the Bills get the 2 seed and host Cincy in any matchup. It's really not that hard to understand. I don't get the logic behind just awarding home field to Cincinnati no matter what.

The fairest thing in ANY scenario is a neutral field. Point is, the Bills have more wins than the Bengals in the same number of games. There's no logical reason to make that a neutral field matchup.

Sucks to be them. Again, they went into the game with the fewest wins of the three teams. That's not either KC's or Buffalo's fault.

I get the knee-jerk reaction, but going into the weekend, Buffalo and KC had 12 wins and Cincinnati had 11. The Bengals' odds of getting the 1 seed were smaller to begin with. If the Bengals had been 12-3 going into the weekend, you would have seen a much more equitable distribution of playoff outcomes. But they weren't.

I do know. The game would be in Buffalo.

Right. And for a team that won the AFCCG on the road last year and has the fewest wins of the three teams involved, their fans are doing a lot of crying.

so of the possible outcomes - and taking game probabilities entirely out of the equation - the Chiefs get the 1 seed 75% of the time and the Bills get it 25%. Bills get 50% of the 2 seed possibilities with the other two teams getting 25% each. Bengals get the 3 seed 75% of the time and Bills 25%. Chiefs can’t get the 3, Bengals can’t get the 1, we can land anywhere between 1-3. A KC-Buffalo AFCCG is 50% likely to be at a neutral site, with Buffalo and KC having a 25% chance each of hosting. And KC is 87.5% likely to host a KC-Cincinnati AFCCG. Again, this doesn’t account for the actual game outcome probabilities. Bengals really don’t have a lot to complain about. They have more losses than either of the other two teams. If they were 12-3 instead of 11-4, this chart would look different. They can talk all day about how the first nine minutes of Monday’s game looked, but that doesn’t matter and I’m glad the NFL agreed. We were hurt too - we no longer control our own destiny. Tough to find a situation where KC has a right to complain, given that they got waxed by both of the other teams and will not have to play a true road game (again). I’m okay with it.

It would be just like the Chiefs to vote against something because it doesn’t give them EVERYTHING. They are terrified of playing anywhere but Arrowhead. And they should be.

This might very well be the clearest argument I’ve read. Although it could be argued that losing to the Vikings wasn’t a “poor” defeat. The way it happened was poor, yes, but the Vikings have 12 wins. You can’t compare that to losing to the Colts. still… no fumble on the goal line and this entire conversation isn’t even happening.

Huh. 10 years of my life went by just like that. I could have sworn it wasn’t that long ago. Oops.

I don't know if you guys caught the part where McD was listing the coaches he'd talked with since Monday who had gone through "similar" situations. He mentioned Joe Gibbs, Romeo Crennel, Mike Tomlin, and another that I can't recall at the moment. The name he didn't mention was Andy Reid. I thought that was interesting, given that they previously worked together and the Chiefs had the Jovan Belcher situation.