3 potential punishments the NFL could give the Tennessee Titans
By Will Lomas
Forfeit
I think this is the least likely to happen, but I also think that it is the second most fitting punishment here.
Where I struggle is whether or not this should award the opposing team with a win or if it should just be ruled a no contest. On one hand, if this is a punishment then the league should give the Titans a loss and the opposing team a win.
On the other hand, if you look at this as more of an “act of God” situation where you align this outbreak with a hurricane or something like that, then it doesn’t feel fair to fully give one team a loss without a chance to play and one team a win that might push someone else out of the playoffs.
Out of pure fairness, I think that it should be a no-contest and the way the league would make this appear like a punishment for the Titans is that they would lose one or two home games this season depending on how many games they go back. In addition to that lost revenue and advantage, the league could say that any playoff tiebreakers would give an advantage to the Bills or Steelers if the two finished with identical records to each other.