NFL 2022

[Pooker]

Hopefully the players didn't give the NFL a choice and just decided not to play. Hate to see this in a game we all love, really makes you wonder about things and life. 

[Lineker]

Warning, the hit is shown at the top of this.

[Szumi]

It's disgusting how hundreds of fucking mongoloids have already said this exact thing. I fucking hate these people. 

 

 

[The Buscher]

9 minutes ago, Lineker said:

Warning, the hit is shown at the top of this.

A lot of physicians have been saying similar things from what I can tell.

The notion that this was very possible a complete fluke thing that happened because he took a hit at the exact wrong millisecond of his heartbeat is horrifying.

[Lineker]

Tee Higgins must feel awful. Hope he's OK. 

[FLiam]

24 minutes ago, Szumi - A Polack said:

It's disgusting how hundreds of fucking mongoloids have already said this exact thing. I fucking hate these people. 

 

 

Also amazing that they’re missing the fact that he took a huge blow to the chest seconds before collapsing. It’s like they bend the truth to fit their narrative or something…

[Lineker]

 

[The Buscher]

His toy drive which had a $2,500 goal is now approaching $1 million

[Pooker]

Not sure how to out the tweet here, but David Shuster is reporting that the players and coaches made the call to not continue playing, not the NFL. Good on them. 

[Lineker]

 

[Lint]

 

[Your Mom]

I don't want to get too into it because it's the least important thing at the moment but the fact that the players had to be the ones who said no this game is done is inexcusable

[Lineker]

 

[DFF]

Good on the coaches and players, and shame on the league for expecting them to go ahead with it. Echoes of when Eriksen had his trauma and UEFA told the Danes to finish the game. Ridiculous. 

[Lineker]

 

[Pooker]

9 hours ago, Your Mom said:

I don't want to get too into it because it's the least important thing at the moment but the fact that the players had to be the ones who said no this game is done is inexcusable

Sounds like a lot of it was people just following protocol, not knowing what else to do. Injured player on the ground? Network goes to commercial, so cameras are off the injury, announcers don't have to speculate to the injury. NFL protocol for after an injury occurs is to let the players warm up for five minutes, then resume play, so that's what the officials did. I'm sure none of that is actually with the thought of somebody nearly dying, which of course nobody wants or should have to, think about happening.

Outside of the people sending out careless tweets (fuck them, especially Skip Bayless), it sounds like everybody did exactly what they were trained to do, it was just too extreme of an injury for anybody to have a plan in place for.

[The Buscher]

With full acknowledgment that football means absolutely nothing compared to Hamlin's health - being this is the NFL discussion thread, just wanted to sum up the football-related issues the league has to sort through:

-The latest a makeup game could happen that would salvage the schedule is probably Thursday, and even that would require adjustments to Week 18.  Bills/Pats and Bengals/Ravens would need to move to Monday.  For the Bills and Bengals this would be like playing a TNF game during any other time of the season.  Subsequently they'd need to also make sure all of the Bengals, Bills, and Ravens are playing as late as possible during week 1 of the playoffs.

-Given that the Bills have flown home, I can't imagine them turning right back around to return to Cincy on such short notice especially without an update on their teammate.  I really don't see a scenario in which a makeup is doable.  With that said, the most likely outcome is that the game is tossed out and the Bills and Bengals' seeding is based on 16-game win percentages.

-Under this scenario, the Ravens have no mathematical way to win the AFC North, making their Week 18 game moot.  The Chiefs also would be in a scenario where they just need to win Saturday to clinch the 1 seed.

-Will the Bills even be in a position to play on Sunday?  If not and it goes into the book as a forfeit, the Patriots are handed the 7th seed with what would be a 9-8 record and Dolphins/Steelers get shafted.  If the game is just a no contest and the Pats are locked in at 8-8, the Pats can only sit by idly while the Dolphins and Steelers get a chance to pass them.

-Could the league pause the season, push the start of the playoffs a week back and cancel the Pro Bowl?  No week off between the Conference Title game and Super Bowl, as the Super Bowl is probably the one game that is completely inflexible logistically.  Networks might not like the delay but they'll ultimately do what the league wants.

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Again, football is ultimately unimportant in the grand scheme but it's easy to see that this situation is gonna have some unprecedented ripple effects depending on how the league chooses to handle it.

[JasonM]

Honestly, if it leads to the season schedule to be extended by a week or maybe two in future seasons, that can only help things in the long term.

Also I have zero issues with dropping the pro bowl, it's always been one of the weirder All-Star game kind of affairs because with how physically draining Football is an extra game is just more reasons for injury, and many athletes already forgo playing in the pro bowl for those exact reasons. Could be possibly replaced with a skills competition or some other sort of showcase event on the Friday/Saturday instead, but idk what the logistics would be on that.

EDIT: @Chris2K has corrected my notions of the pro bowl.

[Chris2K]

The Pro Bowl has already changed. It's a skills competition and flag-football game from this year onwards.

I think a lot of the decisions, both the confusion about continuing last night and for any potential replay, are going to be driven by TV contract expectations, and any potential breaches of those contracts that may occur if the NFL don't deliver the expected number of games.

[The Buscher]

Yeah the Pro Bowl was changed but that's all the more reason it can be scrapped entirely if the NFL needs to start the playoffs a week late.  Or they can do the skills stuff and the game during the week in the lead up to the Super Bowl.  But the Super Bowl itself can't be changed.  It's February 12th, the date has been locked in for a long time, fans and media have had travel and hotel accomodations booked for ages etc and there's just no way to rebook all of this for a week later.  It's the one completely inflexible date on the entire NFL calendar.

In 2020 there wasn't a Pro Bowl anyway but I remember the week between the title games and Super Bowl was viewed as a buffer week if the NFL had to pause the season, which it looked like they were going to have to when a few teams had COVID outbreaks.  Ultimately they didn't need the extra week and got that entire season played even though they had to resort to moving games to weird days and forcing the Broncos to play without a QB on the roster.

Also, in 2020 most of these issues were midseason and they found enough time to squeeze every game in.  This late in the season there just isn't a way to do it without pushing the start of the playoffs out.

Oh and the NFL have more money than god.  If they choose to just go on without Bengals/Bills happening and bite the bullet on whatever teams get screwed on the seeding, it's not like they can't easily pay ESPN whatever the penalty is for missing a game.  Again, this is unprecedented.