If the NFL wants to permanently make conference title games played at neutral sites, it's a horrible idea
It’s a seed that, for some speculating about it, has been planted with a possible Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs AFC title game taking place in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Could the NFL push for the NFC and AFC conference games to take place at a neutral site … permanently?
A statement from the league dropped on Friday all about how “more than 50,000 tickets” were purchased by fans for that potential AFC championship game, a curious thing to send out when the Bills and Chiefs haven’t even played their divisional playoff games yet.
Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio had a lot to say about what that statement might have meant:
The evidence is hiding in plain sight. With a potential AFC Championship in Atlanta between the Bills and the Chiefs derailed as soon as tomorrow, the league wants everyone to know, in the event both teams don’t win this weekend, it would have been awesome. In other words, It will be awesome when we vote to play both conference championships at a neutral site.
Former Packers VP Andrew Brandt had a similar thought:
Translation: the NFL will consider neutral site Championship Games in the future (like CFP games). https://t.co/4mpTUcdOld
— Andrew Brandt (@AndrewBrandt) January 20, 2023
Let’s get ahead of this and keep it simple: No. Please. NO. This is a horrible idea.
First off, the NFL regular season results have already been devalued enough with the addition of another playoff team, which then got rid of the No. 2 seed in each conference losing the extremely valuable bye week.
Now you want to take away home field advantage for the game that decides a Super Bowl berth? Isn’t that what these players on contenders have battled so hard for over 17 games?
Plus, the logistics here — Atlanta is approximately equidistant between Kansas City and Buffalo — just happened to work out. What if the neutral site is between five different stadiums and the one that works out is close for one team and not the other? Can you really coordinate with a bunch of sites and hope that they don’t all make the playoffs or that you can get them ready on short notice?
There’s also the atmosphere factor here, as so perfectly pointed out by ESPN’s Jeff Darlington:
Chalk me up as someone who cringes at the mere suggestion of neutral site conference championships becoming a normal thing. A home game for a trip to the Super Bowl might be the most electric environment in American sports. 100 times better than energy of an actual Super Bowl.
— Jeff Darlington (@JeffDarlington) January 20, 2023
100% agree with this.
Annual neutral site conference championship games would be so lame. https://t.co/Ir9uu3Im0s
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) January 20, 2023
To me, the competition end of it is the sticking point. Want to avoid going to Buffalo or Green Bay in late January? Want to host a game in your cushy domed stadium or the one where crowd noise is very much a factor? Win more games in the regular season.
If this is really an idea the NFL has and is using the wrinkle created after Bills-Bengals was ultimately canceled? Just stop.