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About an hour ago
The Steelers-Browns playoff game is going as planned. For the moment.
This is despite a continued spread of coronavirus cases within the Cleveland Browns organization that began before his Week 16 loss and continued throughout the team’s Week 17 victory against the Steelers.
Via an email to TribLive Steelers beat writer Joe Rutter from NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy, the league is moving forward with plans to kick off at 8:15 p.m. on Sunday night.
Awesome. Likewise, I “plan” to buy the property next to Neverland Ranch and build a mansion of equal size just so I can be Ron Burkle’s neighbor. And I plan to do that with the money I will raise by selling lemonade on Clemente Bridge ahead of the Pirates games this summer.
Let’s see who the plan goes to first. I’ll give McCarthy a better chance. But not by much.
After all, the league has reiterated its “plans” to have the Steelers-Ravens game on Thanksgiving. Then, again, the following Sunday. Then they “planned” it for Tuesday. Only to end up playing on Wednesday.
Not to mention all those “plans” to get the Steelers-Titans game off the ground in time in week 4 as well. How did it go?
The NFL can boast anything they want to get the soldiers going. The league is still prone to the spread of covid-19 among its remaining playoff clubs. The rate of infection will dictate the plans. Roger Goodell’s favorite Super Bowl schedule won’t be.
Unfortunately, the virus seems to ignore that it’s playoff time now, and these games “really” matter and cannot be moved.
Well, they actually can. And let’s be honest, they will be relocated if necessary.
Conferences have a Saturday-Sunday gap between Division Round competitions and Conference Championship games. Therefore, there is no reason why this cannot happen between the wildcard weekend and the division round.
Even if the opponent leaves a bye.
Considering everything else we’ve seen based on schedule adjustments this year, let’s not act like a Monday-Sunday second-round playoff would be catastrophic, or a more damage to competitive balance than it does. ‘a team playing with only two-thirds of its own as we saw when Baltimore came to Heinz Field.
More than ever, the league needs to be transparent about its thresholds for playing matches based on infection rates within individual teams and why decisions will be made to play or postpone.
What does it take to move a game? What are the minimum days accepted between the parties? How many positive cases within a team constitute the need for delay? Is exhaustion of a specific group of positions through close contact tracing important in the analysis or not?
Be frank about it. Now. Before, it seems that Goodell makes things up as he goes along. Because maybe – quietly – what’s good for Patrick Mahomes isn’t good for Baker Mayfield. And that would reek of favoritism.
The Steelers won’t be lost in the next round, so don’t even bother to go. The league would delay a full week before anything like this happens. Honestly, Goodell should have baked in a week before the playoffs started rather than before the Super Bowl.
Get a week away from the holiday peak. Delay six total teams from traveling and 12 total teams from playing until the weekend of January 16.
The playoffs are going to last five weeks anyway. Three weeks of conference, a week off and the Super Bowl. Who needs that extra week before the Super Bowl this year? Why?
The virus has already virtually wiped out all parties, media events and meetings. I think the new AFC and NFC champions would rather just get to the title match as quickly as possible and not stay an extra week training at home among their families and the general public, just waiting to see what happens. player gets covid.
Imagine being the Kansas City Chiefs or the Green Bay Packers after winning the conference title on January 24. Then on Monday, February 1 – after an insignificant farewell weekend – Mahomes or Aaron Rodgers test positive and cannot play Tampa.
What a waste that would be.
What the NFL should have done is create a bubble format for the playoffs, but that apparently never got much prayer because of the logistics, costs, and collective bargaining with the players’ union. the NFL.
Now, if the spread continues, the Browns could look like the makeshift Baltimore unit dressed in the ‘Covid Bowl’ Heinz Field. And then the Steelers will have to expose themselves to this opponent for the second consecutive week.
Evidence so far indicates that a field gap between the teams has been close to zero, if at all.
Would be a bad time to find the outlier of this experience, though, eh? You don’t want the Steelers to become the Browns in contagion terms and then go to Buffalo for the Bills to become the Steelers. Etc.
Sadly, that is the reality the league finds itself in now. Trying to “drive a toaster through a car wash” without getting electrocuted. Believe me, I encourage Goodell to launch this Apollo 13 mission to Tampa on schedule for February 7.
If he can’t, he’s more than welcome to my ranch adjacent to Neverland to turn things around.
In the meantime, can I interest one of you in a glass of lemonade?
Listen: Tim Benz and Joe Rutter get a look at the Steelers playoff game against the Browns and how the covid situation around the Browns impacted the game.
Tim Benz is a writer for Tribune-Review. You can contact Tim at [email protected] or via Twitter. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication, unless otherwise specified.
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Sports | Steelers / NFL | Breakfast with Benz
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