NFL has provided a Week 18 scheduling update. Here’s one thing it means for the Chiefs

The health of Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin remains top of mind for NFL fans a day after he collapsed on the field with a cardiac event before medical personnel administered CPR to him on the field.

Monday night’s Cincinnati-Buffalo game was postponed after that, and the NFL clarified what will happen moving forward with a statement Tuesday afternoon.

In short, the Bills-Bengals game will not be resumed this week, and no decision has been made on whether it will pick up in a future week. The league also said it has made no changes to the Week 18 schedule.

The NFL releasing such a statement emphasizes the reality of this situation: While concern for Hamlin remains, there must be an effort to move ahead with the season.

The Kansas City Chiefs, for instance, practiced Tuesday morning ahead of a Saturday afternoon game against the Las Vegas Raiders.

And after taking in that announcement from the NFL on Tuesday, KC should proceed ahead with some additional insight it didn’t have before.

Precisely this: The Chiefs need to play for a win — and not a tie — on Saturday against the Raiders.

That was unlikely to be the case if Monday night’s Cincinnati-Buffalo game was completed as planned.

KC, Buffalo and Cincinnati entered Monday all still competing for the AFC No. 1 seed and all-important bye. Had the Bills won, they would’ve tied the Chiefs with a 13-3 record (with one week to go), while maintaining the top spot thanks to their head-to-head win earlier this season.

Buffalo might not get a chance now, though, to match back up with the Chiefs.

The NFL’s statement left open possibilities to resume the Cincinnati-Buffalo game, but it’s a logistical issue, especially if Week 18 won’t be interrupted this weekend. ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reported on this Tuesday afternoon, saying the “sense I get after asking around is the Bills would be surprised if the Bengals game resumes at all. There’s just no clean way to do it, and Buffalo’s focus is solely on Damar Hamlin right now.”

If Buffalo and Cincinnati’s contest ends up going down as a “no contest” — meaning both teams would not get a win or a loss for Monday’s game — it would change KC’s incentives for Saturday.

The reason is math ... and decimal points. The NFL’s playoff tiebreaking procedures begin with win percentage, and the Chiefs could get to .824 this weekend if they can defeat the Raiders to improve to 14-3.

A tie, though (counted in the NFL standings as one-half win and one-half loss), wouldn’t be nearly as beneficial. If the Bills play only one more game and defeat the New England Patriots (with the Cincinnati game becoming a “no contest”), they’d finish 13-3 for a .813 win percentage. The Chiefs tying the Raiders and going to 13-3-1 would “drop” their win percentage to .794, giving Buffalo back the edge for the top spot.

It’s the opposite scenario that would’ve taken place had the Bills lost Monday night to the Bengals. In that case, Buffalo and Cincinnati would’ve been 12-4 with no chance to be better than 13-4, meaning KC finishing at 13-3-1 with a tie vs. the Raiders would’ve clinched the AFC No. 1 seed just like a win.

Though ties are rare in the NFL, they aren’t out of the question. Since the league reduced the overtime period from 15 minutes to 10 ahead of the 2017 season, there have been seven ties in the NFL, including two in this 2022 season.

One point to know: The NFL rarely cancels games. There were lost games during strike-shortened seasons in 1982 and 1987, and games were scheduled and played on several days of the week during the COVID-19 pandemic years of 2020 and 2021.

But every team played the same number of games. So, what would be the best date if the league decided to resume the contest?

One possibility: There is an open date between now and the Super Bowl on Feb. 12. It’s the weekend after the AFC and NFC Championship Games set for Jan. 29. The Super Bowl usually gets a two-week build-up.

But to keep a complete schedule without moving the Super Bowl date, the Bills and Bengals could keep their original Week 18 opponents — Buffalo plays host to the Patriots and Cincinnati is home to the Baltimore Ravens this weekend — and then play each other the following week before moving the start of the postseason.

The playoffs are scheduled to begin with Wild Card weekend Jan. 14-16. The Divisional round is set for Jan. 21-22. Those weekends and the championship game date could move on the calendar by a week. Assuming the Super Bowl remains on its original date, that would take out the open week before the big game.

It’s worth reminding that things could change between now and Saturday. For example, the NFL could clarify its plans for Cincinnati-Buffalo, or announce the game is off entirely.

As of now, though, the Chiefs will move forward with the available information, preparing for at least a possibility that the Bills-Bengals game will never have a win-loss result.

If that becomes the case, the Chiefs can move ahead confidently at least knowing this much:

A tie against Las Vegas would no longer be their friend.

The Star’s Blair Kerkhoff contributed to this report.