Will Bills-Bengals game be rescheduled? NFL considers options

UPDATE (January 5):Bills-Bengals game canceled: NFL won't reschedule game postponed after Hamlin collapse

We are now two days removed from the postponement of the game between the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals, and the NFL does not have a solution on whether to resume it at a later date, or cancel it altogether.

“That conversation about what we do with that game has begun,” Jeff Miller, the NFL’s executive vice-president of communications, public affair and policy, said during a conference call with reporters Wednesday afternoon.

Troy Vincent, the executive vice-president of football operations for the NFL, said “Everything is being considered,” including possibly implementing the plan the NFL had in place during the 2020 and 2021 COVID-impacted seasons if the league decides not to resume the game.

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In those years, if teams couldn’t play the same amount of games due to any postponements that couldn’t be rescheduled, playoff seeding would be based on winning percentages. As it turned out, all the games were played.

Interestingly, Vincent said that there is still a possibility of postponing Buffalo’s home game Sunday against the Patriots if circumstances dictate it. Of course, those circumstances would likely revolve around a potential deterioration in the condition of safety Damar Hamlin who suffered cardiac arrest in the first quarter of Monday night’s showdown against the Bengals, prompting the suspension of the game.

Vincent said that to date, all conversations with the Bills have been focused solely on Hamlin’s condition and the mental state of the rest of the team.

However, there seems to be improving news regarding Hamlin. The team issued a statement Wednesday afternoon that read: “Damar remains in the ICU in critical condition with signs of improvement noted yesterday and overnight. He is expected to remain under intensive care as his health care team continues to monitor and treat him.”

Hamlin’s uncle, Dorrian Glenn, provided encouraging news to several reporters in Cincinnati Tuesday night, saying the doctors lowered the level of oxygen he needs from 100% to 50%.

“He’s still sedated right now,” Glenn said during an appearance on CNN. “They just want him to have a better chance of recovering better. So, they feel that if he’s sedated, his body can heal a lot faster than if he was woke and possibly cause other complications.”

Wednesday, the Bills did not have media access as they normally would for an upcoming Sunday game, nor did they have a regular Wednesday practice. They simply had a walk-through session and they will begin earnest preparation for their game against the Patriots on Thursday, at which time McDermott and players will be made available to reporters.

In Cincinnati, the Bengals did get back to work as they prepare for a home game against Baltimore that will decide the NFC North division title.

In his first public comments since Monday’s game was stopped, Bengals coach Zac Taylor said that his level of respect for Bills coach Sean McDermott and the Bills’ organization soared to a new level.

Asked to describe what transpired when he went across the field to meet with McDermott after the medical personnel had re-started Hamlin’s heart and he was loaded into the ambulance, Taylor said McDermott, “Showed who he was.”

“When I got over there,” Taylor said, “the first thing he said was, ‘I need to be at the hospital with Damar, I shouldn’t be coaching this game. All his focus was being there for Damar and his family and being at the hospital. At that moment, everything trended in the direction that it needed to trend. We’ve always had great respect for them; I think that’s grown much deeper.”

Once Taylor spoke to McDermott, no further discussion needed to be had. He was perfectly aligned with McDermott in postponing the game.

“Sean McDermott and the officials led the way there,” Taylor said. “It was determined to just take a few moments to just process what happened and go to our sidelines. Nobody had time to process. I looked at Sean and the players and all they were doing was looking at their brother, their teammate and hoping for the best there. That’s the only thing going through their mind.”

Taylor’s own player, wide receiver Tyler Boyd, is a Pittsburgh-area native and University of Pitt alum like Hamlin, and as if the trauma the Bills’ players were obviously experiencing wasn’t enough, Taylor saw that Boyd and several other Bengals were just as shaken.

“I could see the look on Jordan Poyer’s face, on Josh Allen’s face, on TB’s (Boyd) face and just processing how awful the situation was,” Taylor said. “The officials did a great job of coming to me, and said, ‘They’re still trying to process what happened.’ The decision was made, instead of playing telephone across the sidelines, to just go over there and talk together.”

Taylor went on to praise the work that was performed by the entire cache of medical personnel who saved Hamlin’s life.

“All the medical professionals that were involved, the Bills’ trainers, the Bills’ doctors, our trainers, our doctors, the paramedics, the emergency response team, I thought that they were on it,” Taylor said. “They were composed, it was obviously a complicated situation on the field that everybody was trying to process. They were prepared and they gave Damar the best chance. I was really impressed and thankful for the work they put in to be ready for moments like that.”

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He also lauded the work of referee Shawn Smith and his crew, who were working in conjunction with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on how to proceed.

“I thought they did a tremendous job handling a situation in which there’s no rulebook, there’s no protocols for how to handle that,” Taylor said. “They really did a good job. Everyone that was on the field could feel the seriousness of the situation and they did a great job of stepping back, asking the Bills what they needed, asking us what we needed, giving us the space to process, I thought they did a tremendous job.”

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This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Will Bills-Bengals game be rescheduled? NFL considers options