Or, God forbid, on their fantasy team.
If any Doctors want to chime in that would be great. If he had cardiac arrest and has been sedated/intubated that sounds like a serious issue with the heart.
Given that it won’t be played this week, I don’t see how it can be uncertain if the game will be played at all. When could they do it? They aren’t going to have a Wednesday or Thursday game next week, giving both teams a two-day rest, then potentially a three-day rest before another game. I can’t imagine they are going to push the entire playoff schedule out by a week to play it either.
There’s a built-in off-week in the playoff schedule, between the conference championship games (January 29th), and the Super Bowl (February 12th).
The Super Bowl itself can’t be easily moved, but if the league decided that the Bills-Bengals game must be played, they could, in theory, finish it on Sunday, January 15th (while the rest of the teams have an off week), push the start of the playoffs back a week, and remove the pre-Super Bowl off week.
That is an excellent idea. The extra week before the Superbowl is nice but not required.
I might instead have them resume this game this Sunday, where their previously scheduled opponents would have a bye, then play those two games the following week with everyone else on a bye.
At this point, certainly the Bills and probably the Bengals are in no position to start preparing for a different opponent 5 days from now.
The extra week before the Super Bowl is not nice and I’d be all too happy with its elimination. But pushing out the entire schedule except for the last game still counts as pushing out the schedule in my opinion, and I’d be shocked if they do that versus finding a way to seed the playoffs without this game.
That’s still asking the Bills to prepare for a new opponent this Sunday.
Correct. Suck it up, Buttercup.
(Not my opinion, but certainly the NFL’s/Goodell’s.)
Things might be different if Hamlin doesn’t recover. But as long as he appears to be on the road to recovery, I think $$$ will win out. And rearranging this weekend’s games would cost a lot.
Also Skip Bayless.
He later threw himself to the ground in the public square and rent his clothes asunder, flogging himself with a scourge in repentance, but the guy is a professional troll and people aren’t having it.
https://www.si.com/nfl/cowboys/news/dallas-cowboys-damar-hamlin-buffalo-bills-skip-bayless-nfl
Based on the crazy game-shifting the league pulled off in 2020, here’s how I imagine it plays out:
- Play week 18 games as scheduled.
- If seeds are still undecided, resume the Buffalo-Cincinnati game Thurs. 1/12. (If seeds are decided by Sunday’s games, the game never gets resumed.)
- Whichever team doesn’t get the #1 seed hosts its playoff game on Tues. 1/17 instead of Sunday 1/15.
- The next round of playoffs goes on as scheduled 1/21 and 1/22.
It’s not ideal for either team, but no one has to play on less than 4 days rest.
Here’s my question, and I am not trying to be a dick about it - how much rest do they really need? The game yesterday went only 5-6 minutes of play. I don’t recall, but each team only had one possession? That means both teams’ offense and defense was on the field for one possession each? I am not at all saying they should not play this week for other more important reasons, but ISTM the starters just were getting warmed-up when the playing stopped.
They could resume this game quite quickly. Tonight if everyone had wanted to.
Preparing a new game plan for a different opponent is at least four days. I’d actually say more than four. It’s true that Thursday games make a lot of teams play after four days, but those short week performances usually suck.
I guess they could stagger wildcard weekend, doing the NFC wildcard games as scheduled, then the AFC wildcard round the following week.
As long as the Bills and Bengals next game is resuming this one, there is flexibility in the scheduling. They don’t need prep time to keep playing the same game.
They’ve already said they won’t play it this week – which may have more to do with logistics and emotional strain than physical exhaustion – so any makeup has to come after the week 18 games.
And the league plainly considers 4 days’ rest to be enough since they play almost every Thursday. (Players hate the short weeks, and the league doesn’t care.) Will the teams on short rest be at a disadvantage? Absolutely. But the alternative would involve moving whole slates of games and eliminating the down week before the Super Bowl. Can’t see it happening.
Not a doctor, but one reason for sedation/intubation after a cardiac arrest is the concern that there may have been sufficient lack of oxygen to the brain to cause some injury. Injured brains can swell, just like almost anything else injured, but unlike an ankle or elbow the brain is encased in a closed box made of bone. If the brain swells there’s nowhere for it to go, so it increase the pressure inside the head and increased pressure there can cause tissue death, which is bad anywhere but particularly bad in the brain.
Chilling down the body along with sedation and intubation can decrease the risk (or amount) of brain swelling, reducing the chances of long-term problems. Also, after that kind of injury the heart may be weaker than usual and by slowing the metabolism and need for oxygen (or upping the oxygen in the breathing tube) it can reduce the work load of the heart, allowing it to heal without causing a risk to the brain.
So yes, it’s a sign of something bad having occurred, but it’s also a standard treatment for several types of injury.
Again, not a doctor (so if a real doctor chimes in listen to them over me) and I do not have any more detailed information than any other casual listener to the news.
I didn’t hear that…seems very odd to me that the ambulance would wait for anything. And I can’t imagine them wanting family to ride with him when they’re in a resuscitation scenario.
So, Dopers, if you had to screw over someone to get playoff seedings, and it appears the league has to, what do you think is the “least evil” option?
The least evil option is to just call the game with a final score of 7-3 and do the playoff seeding from there.
I’m not saying it’s the best outcome, just the least evil.
I don’t understand how anyone who can read would consider Bayless’s statement insensitive. He literally says the otherwise “important” game feels irrelevant next to Hamlin’s health.
That or maybe call it a tie? Would that make it more neutral a result in terms of impact to the standings?