About an hour ago
The Steelers-Browns playoff game is scheduled. For a while.
This is despite the continuing spread of coronavirus cases within the Cleveland Browns organization, which started before their defeat in Week 16 and continued during the team’s victory in Week 17 over the Steelers.
Via email to the TribLive Steelers to beat writer Joe Rutter of NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy, the league is moving forward with plans to start at 8:15 pm on Sunday night.
Great. Likewise, I am “planning” to buy the property next to the Neverland ranch and build a mansion the same size just to be a neighbor of Ron Burkle. And I intend to do that with all the money I raise by selling lemonade at Ponte Clemente before the Pirates games this summer.
Let’s see which plan comes together first. I’ll give McCarthy a better chance. But not much.
After all, the league reiterated “plans” to have the Steelers-Ravens game on Thanksgiving. Then again, the following Sunday. So they “planned” for Tuesday. Just to end up playing Wednesday.
Not to mention all those “plans” to launch the Steelers-Titans game in time for Week 4 as well. How did it end?
The NFL can flaunt as much as it wants about moving on. The league is still subject to the spread of the covid-19 among the other playoff clubs. The infection rate will dictate the plans. Roger Goodell’s favorite Super Bowl schedule, no.
Unfortunately, the virus does not seem to know that now is the playoff time, and these games “really” count and cannot be moved.
Well, actually, they can. And let’s be honest, they will be moved if necessary.
Conferences have a gap from Saturday to Sunday between division round disputes and conference championship games. So there is no reason why this should not happen between the wild card weekend and the divisional round as well.
Even if the opponent is coming out of a bye.
Considering everything else we’ve seen based on schedule adjustments this year, we won’t act like a second round playoff game Monday through Sunday would be catastrophic, or more tainting the competitive balance than a team playing with just two thirds their list as we saw when Baltimore came to Heinz Field.
Now, more than ever, the league needs to be transparent about its limits on games based on infection rates in individual teams and the reasons why decisions will be made to play or postpone.
What does it take to move a game? What are the minimum days accepted between games? How many positive cases in a team are there a need for a delay? Does the exhaustion of a specific position group by tracking close contact matter in the analysis or not?
Be blunt about it. Now. Before it looks like Goodell is making things up as he goes. Because maybe – quietly – what’s good for Patrick Mahomes is not good for Baker Mayfield. And that would smell like favoritism.
The Steelers are not going to be lost in the next round, so don’t even worry about going there. The league would take an entire week before something like this happened. Honestly, Goodell should have made the cake a week before the start of the playoffs instead of before the Super Bowl.
Take another week off the peak of the holiday. Delay the travel of six teams and the game of 12 teams until the weekend of January 16.
The playoffs will last five weeks anyway. Three weeks of conference, a week of farewell and the Super Bowl. Who needs that extra week before this year’s Super Bowl? For what?
The virus has already eliminated virtually all parties, media events and meetings. I think the newly crowned AFC and NFC champions would prefer to just get to the title game as soon as possible and not sit around for another week training at home between their families and the general public, just waiting to see what important player is greedy.
Imagine being the Kansas City Chiefs or Green Bay Packers after winning the conference title on January 24th. Then, on Monday, February 1 – after a meaningless farewell weekend – Mahomes or Aaron Rodgers get a positive test and cannot play in Tampa.
What a waste it would be.
What the NFL should have done is build a bubble shape for the playoffs, but that apparently never had much of a chance because of the logistics, cost and collective bargaining with the NFL Players Union.
Now, if the spread continues, the Browns may look like the makeshift unit that Baltimore wore at Heinz Field “Covid Bowl”. And then the Steelers will have to expose themselves to that opponent for the second week in a row.
So far, the evidence indicates that the spread in the field between teams was close to zero, if any.
Now would be a terrible time to discover the outlier in this experience, huh? You don’t want the Steelers to become the Browns in terms of contagion and then go to Buffalo so that the Bills become the Steelers. And so on.
Unfortunately, that is the reality the league is in now. Trying to “drive a toaster in a car wash” without being electrocuted. Believe me, I am hoping Goodell will resolve this Apollo 13 mission to Tampa on the February 7 schedule.
If he can’t, he’s more than welcome to my ranch adjacent to Neverland to get his mind off things.
In the meantime, can I interest any of you with a glass of lemonade?
Listen: Tim Benz and Joe Rutter preview the Steelers playoff against the Browns and how the gloomy situation around the Browns will affect the game.
Tim Benz is an editor on the Tribune-Review team. You can contact Tim at [email protected] or via Twitter. All tweets can be posted again. All emails are subject to publication, unless otherwise specified.
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Sports | Steelers / NFL | Breakfast with Benz