KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KSHB) — At a special league meeting Friday, NFL clubs passed a resolution to play the AFC Championship Game at a neutral site “for the 2022 season only," if necessary.
The decision follows the NFL saying the Week 17 game between the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals would not resume. The game, which had playoff implications, was stopped after Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest.
This move is contingent on who ends up in the championship game. If either the Bills, Bengals or Kansas City Chiefs end up in the title game and could have ended the regular season as the No. 1 seed, a neutral site will be selected by the NFL commissioner.
Other scenarios would lead to the game being played at the home stadium of the higher seed.
This Sunday, if Baltimore defeats Cincinnati and the two are set to face one another in the Wild Card Game, the NFL has resolved the “site of the game will be determined by a coin toss supervised by the commissioner.”
The decisions agreed to Friday were made to “mitigate certain competitive effects” in the playoffs, per the NFL.
Before the changes were announced, Buffalo provided an update about Hamlin's condition, saying he spoke with teammates after his breathing tube was removed.
This story was originally reported on KSHB.com.
