The Cincinnati Bengals could have done more than advance to the AFC Championship game with a win over the Buffalo Bills last Sunday.
The Bengals may also have saved a long-standing tradition for NFL fans.
To recap, the NFL was gearing up for a neutral site game for the AFC Championship should Buffalo and Kansas City advance to it.
Normally, the stadium of the team with the better record (or, if the record is equal, has the tiebreak) plays conference championship games.
But since Buffalo failed to finish its regular-season game in Cincinnati the penultimate week of the regular season after Buffalo safety Damar Hamlin collapsed and nearly died on the field, the NFL didn’t think it was fair that Buffalo could potentially lose the chance home advantage as the top seed in the conference.
Buffalo and Kansas City went into this game with identical records, but Buffalo held the tiebreak due to their regular-season win over the Chiefs.
The best news of all was that Hamlin survived but not completing the game led to a problem.
So the NFL came up with the solution of hosting a potential matchup between the Bills and the Chiefs at a neutral venue that was later chosen to be Atlanta.
The potential game had already sold 50,000 tickets and the league was “salivating” over the potential of a conference championship game at a neutral venue. according to CBS Sports.
If that had been a hit, it would undoubtedly have whetted the appetite of the NFL, and possible neutral locations for conference championship games in the future would have been considered.
That might have understandably upset franchises and fans who want the full reward of a great season by being able to host a conference championship game in their city as usual.
However, thanks to the Bengals, that will not happen this year and the NFL will not know the full scope of a neutral-site AFC championship game going forward.
Cincinnati defeated the Bills 27-10 in Buffalo, and with the Chiefs having a better record, Sunday’s AFC title game is in Kansas City.
After the win over Buffalo, Cincinnati quarterback Joe Burrow told CBS during an on-field interview that the league “did better send those refunds.”
If neutral conference championship games are not revisited in the future, fans will have Burrow and the Bengals to thank.
