I wonder if they will wait and see if this game actually needs to be played. If the Bills lose to the Patriots (long shot, but given what all happened, it is possible) and the Chiefs beat the Raiders and Cincinnati beats Baltimore, then this game becomes irrelevant.
I normally don't comment on the NFL, because I believe most people here know how I feel about the NFL! But with this incident coming up, I have to, especially as it brings back memories of what happened in the AFL (Australian Rules Football) in 2015. I bring it up because while I'm aware of the incident, I did see some comment about how to continue, which is what brought this up.
A bit of backstory. There was a player who became a coach in 2014, named Phil Walsh. He finished his career, and subsequently became an assistant coach at the West Coast Eagles, then moved to be assistant coach at the Port Adelaide Power, before landing the senior coach job at Port Adelaide's crosstown rival, the Adelaide Crows. Needless to say that with the experience he gained, Walsh was loved by all three clubs.
Into his second year as senior/head coach, there was some sort of family argument between his family and his son. Long story short, his son came back to his parents house, and ended up killing his father, Phil. This was 2 days before Adelaide was to play Geelong, which also had not only playoff implications but league MVP implications. The AFL ended up taking the move to cancel that game (which was supposed to be played in Adelaide), and opened the field up as a place for the fans to just enjoy being together, grieve, mourn, and remember the coach. As the league goes off of a points system to determine places on the ladder, they awarded 2 points each to Adelaide and Geelong, as if the game ended in a tie. For the rest of the games that week, at the end of each game, both teams (18 team competition) got together at the center of the field, and had a moment of silence for Walsh.
What made it harder for the Crows players - outside the fact that they had to replace their coach for unbelievable conditions - was that their next game was against West Coast, which Walsh was coach there; the week after that was a Showdown: crosstown rivalry against Port, which Walsh was coach there. Adelaide lost that match against West Coast, but it didn't matter; the what mattered was that they made it back out there and played their asses off for their coach. They did win the Showdown, which again, was a tearjerker.
I bring this up, because it was mentioned that there is no precedent for what to do if a game is canceled in the NFL, and I'm surprised (but not surprised) that there isn't. They now need to seriously think about this, just like they thought about the hubs/bubbles they had for COVID. But for something like this, including the guy that left that very same field paralyzed (and thankfully has relearned how to walk), you'd have thought that the NFL would have
SOMETHING.
BL.
