The NFL could play an AFC Championship game at a neutral site this season. Has this ever happened before?
After the Week 17 game between the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals was not played to the end, there are several scenarios this season that could result in an AFC Championship without home-field advantage.
The match will be played at a neutral venue in the following scenarios, H/T ESPN:
- If Buffalo (12-3) and Kansas City (13-3) win or tie, the Bills-Chiefs championship game will be played at a neutral site.
- If Buffalo and Kansas City both lose and Baltimore wins or draws, the Bills-Chiefs championship game will be played at a neutral site.
- If Buffalo and Kansas City both lose and Cincinnati (11-4) wins, a Bills or Bengals vs. Chiefs championship game would take place at a neutral site.
This raises the question of whether this has happened before.
Has a neutral site conference championship ever been held in the NFL playoffs?
From what we can tell based on a dataset pulled from FiveThirtyEight, no, a conference championship has never been played at a neutral venue. In fact, no postseason game whatsoever was played at a neutral site, with the exception of Super Bowl games.
Neutral-site games aren’t completely foreign to the NFL, though. The Super Bowl is played at a “neutral site” every year (with the exception of the last two years, when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Los Angeles Rams qualified for the title game while it was taking place at their stadium ).
The NFL has also played several games overseas, in London, Germany and Mexico. Others have been moved to the United States due to weather, the two most recent being the Bills who played a home game in Detroit this season and the Saints who played a home game in Jacksonville last season.
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