Joe Mixon brings rulebook receipts to counter NFL’s coin flip decision

January 7, 2023 ndowd

Joe Mixon is not amused with the NFL’s thought process regarding the Bengals-Bills cancelation, thus putting a wrench in the playoffs

While the NFL community is still hoping for a speedy recovery from Damar Hamlin, there is also another conundrum the league must deal with as Week 18 is less than a day away.

An announcement regarding the status of Bengals-Bills was made Thursday night, as the NFL decided not to move forward with the all-important contest given the on-field circumstances.

Instead, America’s most popular league decided to come to a different resolution, as news broke Friday that the owners had agreed upon two alternatives to rectify the scheduling challenges as the playoff picture becomes clearer.

The AFC Champ Game neutral site scenarios and BAL-CIN coin toss for Wild Card home site scenario has been APPROVED by the owners…2023 Resolution G-1 (below). My AFC Seeding Chart with notes posted last night remains intact. pic.twitter.com/IU2NRxxfdc

— Joe Ferreira (@JoeNFL) January 6, 2023

“The AFC Champ Game neutral site scenarios and BAL-CIN coin toss for Wild Card home site scenario has been APPROVED by the owners…2023 Resolution G-1 (below). My AFC Seeding Chart with notes posted last night remains intact,” tie-breaking expert Joe Ferreira wrote on Twitter.

Therefore, the league declared the Bengals as AFC North champions given the result of the vote and due to the fact that their opponent, Baltimore, played an uneven number of games compared to Cincinnati.

Although the NFL has seemingly resolved the issue, it did not sit well with Bengals running back Joe Mixon upon finding out that his team would not resume the Monday night encounter.

“So we not following the rules no more,” Mixon wrote on his Twitter account Thursday night.

The screenshots that Mixon shared specifically outline what the NFL normally does given a canceled game and from the looks of it, as his tweet suggests, were not followed. Bengals head coach Zac Taylor feels the same:

Zac Taylor on the playoff scenarios: What’s in front of us is to win this weekend. From what I’m concerned, we just want the rules to be followed.

Bengals not happy NFL changing the rules and not going by winning percentage.

“It’s black and white, it’s in the rule book.”

— Kelsey Conway (@KelseyLConway) January 6, 2023

Only three playoff spots remain entering Week 18

With the NFL not planning to play a de-facto “Week 19,” the league will move on with Saturday and Sunday games as originally scheduled, as the Titans-Jaguars, Packers-Lions, Bills-Patriots and Dolphins-Jets are just a few games with playoff implications attached to each.

As is the case every year in the regular season’s finale, all major markets should get four Sunday games in the early and late windows combined, with games scattered across FOX and CBS.

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