NFL approves playoff changes, including potential neutral site for AFC championship

NFL owners voted to approve changes to the NFL playoff format after the league ruled the Buffalo Bills vs. Cincinnati Bengals game be a no-contest.

The league’s competition committee approved two measures should the Bills or Bengals advance to the AFC Championship game and a scenario involving a potential Bengals-Ravens Wild Card round game.

Here are the changes agreed upon by the owners based on different scenarios involving the Bills, Bengals and Kansas City Chiefs.

1. The AFC Championship Game will be played at a neutral site if the participating teams played an unequal number of games and both could have been the number one seed and hosted the game had all AFC clubs played a full 17-game regular season. Those circumstances involve Buffalo or Cincinnati qualifying for the game as a road team and are listed below:

Scenario 1: Buffalo and Kansas City both win or both tie — a Buffalo vs Kansas City championship game would be at a neutral site.

Scenario 2: Buffalo and Kansas City both lose and Baltimore wins or ties — a Buffalo vs Kansas City championship game would be at a neutral site.

Scenario 3: Buffalo and Kansas City both lose and Cincinnati wins — a Buffalo or Cincinnati vs Kansas City championship game would be at a neutral site.

2. If Baltimore defeats Cincinnati in Week 18, it will have defeated Cincinnati, a divisional opponent, twice but will not be able to host a playoff game because Cincinnati will have a higher winning percentage for a 16-game schedule than Baltimore will for a 17-game schedule.

If Baltimore defeats Cincinnati and if those two clubs are scheduled to play a Wild Card game against one another, the site for that game would be determined by a coin toss. If Cincinnati wins the Week 18 game or if Baltimore and Cincinnati are not scheduled to play one another in the Wild Card round, the game sites would be determined by the regular scheduling procedures.