Week 18

[86WARD]

This. Not wanting to do it isn't the same thing as not being able to do it - the NFL is a multi-billion-dollar corporation that can pretty much do whatever the hell it wants. Shifting the schedule a single week into the future and shaving a week off between the conference championships and the Super Bowl (which has been done before) is simply not that big of a deal.

And the Pro Bowl? Move it to the week after the Super Bowl (which has also been done in the past on the regular). Next to nobody gives an actual shit about that anyway. Hell, HGTV gets higher ratings than the Pro Bowl.

And likewise, the Steelers are out of it, so I certainly don't care enough to keep arguing about it .

But I DO want to see them have to scramble to come up with a neutral site for a Bills/Chiefs AFCCG in a panic, because I can almost guarantee that Goodell and Company are relying on at least one of those two teams losing in the postseason before making it that far.

If the Goodell regime had its shit together (it doesn't), the neutral site would have already been settled on and arrangements for its possible use would be well underway. That's something that actually does involve planning (security, concessions, parking, available lodging, etc.) and the NFL so far is dropping the ball on it.

They have that plan in place. Look how quickly they were able to come up with Detroit as a location for the Bills when it stormed. This is weeks in advance.

I get you hate the NFL but trying to put blame on them for coming up with pretty much the only solution possible is just being a hater. The NFL can’t do whatever they want if the advertisers and TV Neetworks aren’t going to play along…

[fansince'76]

They have that plan in place. Look how quickly they were able to come up with Detroit as a location for the Bills when it stormed. This is weeks in advance.

Except they really don't:

As for potential locations of the AFC Championship Game, Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis had been targeted as a possible solution, but they’ll be hosting a national volleyball tournament there that weekend. Detroit’s Ford Field has also been mentioned as a possible location, but they bowed out as they replace the playing surface at their field.

Obviously, wild-card weekend and the divisional round still have to play out for things to get to this point, but the NFL now has to prepare for the very real possibility of a neutral-site AFC title game. We’ll have more on a location when the league makes a decision.

I get you hate the NFL but trying to put blame on them for coming up with pretty much the only solution possible is just being a hater. The NFL can’t do whatever they want if the advertisers and TV Neetworks aren’t going to play along…

But they would play along. NFL football, particularly NFL playoff football, draws eyeballs in massive numbers consistently - in fact, nothing else out there comes remotely close to the ratings the NFL gets. If the NFL says jump, it's a pretty safe bet that the networks and the advertisers are all going to ask how high.

As far as hating the NFL goes, not at all - I just strongly disagree with the way the Bengals/Bills game was "resolved," that's all. It was a really crummy situation all around that there was no "good" solution for, but I think "spreading the pain" as evenly as possible by pushing the playoffs back a week and allowing the Bengals and Bills to conclude the game that got canceled would have been more equitable than the Bills getting screwed out of the bye and HFA out of hand.

[86WARD]

It’s not that hard to understand that it logistically can’t be done by pushing everything back a week. It just can’t happen.

Just because two venues are taken, there’s 28 others plus a host of college stadiums. They’ll be fine and just because it’s being “reported”, like you said, the NFL is a pretty big business…they have a plan in place…it’s not going to be a scramble at the last minute. Lol