Earlier this week there were some wild reports about the Wild Card game between the Buffalo Bills and Pittsburgh Steelers playoff game being moved to Cleveland because of a massive winter storm projected over the weekend in Buffalo. The NFL quickly denied that report and said the game would still be played in Buffalo. However, the Bills-Steelers game will still be affected by unsafe blizzard conditions.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced on Saturday morning that after speaking with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, the Bills-Steelers playoff game would be postponed until Monday at 4:30 PM ET.
The game was originally scheduled at 1 PM ET and set to be televised on CBS with Jim Nantz, Tony Romo, Tracy Wolfson, and Jay Feely on the call. The move to Monday means that there will be two Wild Card games on Sunday instead of three – Fox’s telecast of Packers-Cowboys at 4:30 PM ET and NBC’s telecast of Rams-Lions at 8:15 p.m. ET. CBS announced that pregame coverage Monday would start an hour before kickoff with a Monday edition of The NFL Today.
The NFL is now looking at a Wild Card Monday doubleheader with Bills-Steelers at 4:30 PM ET followed by Eagles-Buccaneers on ABC and ESPN at 8:15 PM ET. With the country celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, it shouldn’t hurt the audience numbers as dramatically as it might have were it not a holiday weekend. Unfortunately for the NBA, it’s another example of the NFL taking attention from their originally planned holiday showcase with a national television doubleheader already scheduled for the MLK Day afternoon.
With white out conditions in Buffalo consisting of 2-3 feet of snow, 60 mile per hour wind gusts, and below zero wind chills, a postponement seems like the only logical decision for the safety of everyone involved.