NFL Owners approved changes for the upcoming playoff season that were necessitated by the suspension of the Buffalo Bills-Cincinnati Bengals game on Monday after Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest on the field.
The game was canceled, meaning the Bills and Bengals will each play 16 games as opposed to the regulation 17,
The resolution announced is as follows:
- Resolved, that for the 2022 season only, the AFC Championship Game will be played at a neutral site, to be determined by the Commissioner, if (A) the participating teams played a different number of regular season games; and (B) the lower-seeded team in the Championship Game could have been the number one seed in the AFC if a full 17-game regular season had
been played by all AFC clubs; and further- Resolved, that unless both participating clubs could have been the number one seed in the AFC and host the Championship Game had they played a full 17-game regular season, the game shall be played at the home stadium of the higher-seeded team; and further
- Resolved, that if (a) Baltimore defeats Cincinnati in the game between the two clubs scheduled for Sunday, January 8, 2023; and (b) Baltimore and Cincinnati are scheduled to play against one another in a Wild-Card Game the following weekend, the site of the game will be determined by a coin toss supervised by the Commissioner.
- Unless both conditions are met, the
site of any Wild Card Game involving Baltimore and Cincinnati shall be determined per Article XX of the Constitution and Bylaws. Irrespective of where a Wild Card game between Baltimore and Cincinnati is played, all teams will retain their seeding as determined by the regular season winning percentage throughout the playoffs and for other competitive determinations.