The Bengals Sound Ridiculous Obsessing Over the Neutral Site AFC Championship Game That Never Happened

The Cincinnati Bengals beat the Buffalo Bills, 27-10, to advance to their second consecutive AFC Championship Game, a rematch against the Kansas City Chiefs. Because of the unusual circumstances surrounding the Bengals - Bills game in week 17, the AFC Championship would have been played at a neutral site if the Bills had won. The Bengals have apparently been using this as serious motivation to win this week.

Joe Mixon called this "disrespectful" earlier in the week. Joe Burrow was asked about it by Tracy Wolfson on the field after the Bengals victory and joked, "better send those refunds" to those who had purchased tickets. Then coach Zac Taylor was asked about it in his press conference and apologized for his team screwing up everyone's plans.

"It is tough, because they have to formulate the plans for the coin tosses, and they gotta formulate plans for neutral site games, and we just keep screwing it up for everybody. And I hate that for the people who have to endure all those logistical issues. We just keep screwing it up so we're sorry."

To be clear here, the Bengals are mad about a contingency plan. It would have been extremely weird if the NFL hadn't come up with some sort of plan in case the two top seeds in the conference advanced to the title game. In fact, the Chiefs and Bills might have found that quite disrespectful themselves. And it's unclear what the NFL could have done that the Bengals - or some other team - wouldn't have been able to use to imagine some sort of slight.

This just goes to show you how weird athletes are when they're looking for some kind of edge.