Bills and Bengals will meet in playoffs after regular season game canceled

Kareem Elgazzar/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK

Cincinnati is now on a playoff roll after beating the Ravens, but can they keep it going in Buffalo next week?

It took 22 seasons for the Cincinnati Bengals to finally end their playoff win drought last year, shocking the world by reaching the Super Bowl after a remarkable run through the AFC playoffs. After beating the Baltimore Ravens 24-17 on Sunday night, the Bengals must now a pass a test that they did not have to take a year ago and their divisional round matchup is sure to come with a heavy dose of headlines and controversy.

Cincinnati gets a “rematch” with the Bills, just three weeks after Buffalo safety Damar Hamlin was rushed to the hospital after suffering cardiac arrest during a since-canceled game between the two teams on “Monday Night Football”. Hamlin’s terrifying situation necessitated CPR on the field and a nine-day stay in at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, before he was able to go back home a few days ago.

Thanks to medical personnel and health experts who worked on him from the game to the hospital, Hamlin is on his way to recovery, which is the most important outcome of what happened on January 2nd. How the NFL would end up handling the fallout of delaying and then cancelling the game has not been without controversy, which is now culminating in home-field advantage for the Bills against the Bengals in the divisional round of the playoffs.

That is sure to invite way more questions about “fairness” and “competitive advantages” based on their decisions two weeks ago on what to do in this very scenario.

The Bengals finished 12-4 and the Bills finished 13-3, but it is possible that Cincinnati would have been 13-4 with a higher seed than Buffalo if the game had been completed. The two teams played the same number of games, so the NFL didn’t feel the need to alter any scenarios like they did for teams who played an uneven number.

A 13-4 record would not have been good enough to take the number one seed away from the Kansas City Chiefs, for what it’s worth, but if the Bills do beat the Bengals next Sunday, and the Chiefs beat the Jacksonville Jaguars, the AFC Championship game will be played at a neutral location: Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. The Bills receive the benefit of the neutral site because they could have held onto the one seed with a MNF win.

That only matters if the Bengals lose, and after their struggles to put away backup quarterback Tyler Huntley’s Ravens on Sunday night to get this far, that is a definite possibility against Josh Allen in Buffalo next week.

Though former MVP quarterback Lamar Jackson was held out for the sixth game in a row—and now into the offseason as he re-enters contract negotiations and a potential holdout with the Ravens—the Bengals were never able to put their foot on the gas and pull away from Baltimore in the Wild Card round. Cincinnati took an early 9-0 lead following a Huntley interception in the first quarter, but the Bengals allowed the Ravens to come back for a 10-9 halftime lead.

Baltimore’s defense held tough against Burrow and Chase for most of the night and gave the Ravens’ offense an easy opportunity to take a lead with the game tied 17-17 early in the fourth quarter. After driving from their own 18 to the Cincinnati 1-yard line, it appeared all but certain that the Ravens would at least take a three-point lead in the worst-case scenario.

Huntley and Bengals defensive end Sam Hubbard came up with an even worse worst-case scenario for the Ravens: Huntley fumbled at the one and Hubbard returned the ball 98 yards for what ended up being the game-winning touchdown.

Somewhere, Lamar Jackson was smiling. Maybe.

Burrow and the Bengals could not put the game away, though, gaining just 12 total yards on their last two drives and giving the Ravens three more chances to tie the game and at least send it into overtime. They couldn’t and now Baltimore is going home, while Cincinnati is going to Buffalo.

Though that might not have been the case if the Bengals were able to finish the game and beat the Bills in Week 17, Burrow wasn’t focused on that when asked about the rematch in Buffalo after Sunday’s win.

“We’re gonna have our hands full with them, but we’ve been in these moments,” said Burrow on the NBC post-game interview.

Yes, the Bengals were in four big playoff moments a year ago. But none against the Bills. And none with these many questions over “How did we get here?”