As expected, the NFL will play Week 2 games the weekend of Jan.6 after the games were postponed in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks.

        The Bengals will travel to Tennessee to play the AFC Central rival Titans.

        Unexpected, however, in NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue's announcement Tuesday was that four wild-card teams — two in each conference — would not automatically be left out of postseason play, as first was believed.

        The makeup weekend initially was scheduled as wild-card weekend.

        “We believe that a full 16-game regular-season schedule is vital to our fans and the integrity of our season,” Tagliabue said. “Each team needs to be guaranteed the same number of home and away games plus an equal number of divisional games. The NFL Competition Committee was unanimous on that point.”

        Tagliabue said the committee was studying ways to get 12 teams into the playoffs.

        Bengals president Mike Brown was pleased with the commissioner's decision.

        “It's a recovery that is the best we can do in this predicament,” Brown said. “If it's possible to get all the postseason games in, too, that would be good.”

        Tagliabue said he wanted to try to keep the postseason format of six division winners and six wild cards. It first was thought that creating a Week 18 in the schedule would eliminate the four wild cards.

        “Several options have been presented to us in recent days that would help us accomplish (the regular 12-team postseason),” Tagliabue said. “We will review them and make a decision shortly. If we cannot resolve our entire postseason lineup

        in a satisfactory fashion, we then will go to a system of six division winners and two wild-card teams for this one season only.”

        The NFL Players Association supported the 16-game schedule.

        Each Monday during the regular season, players are paid one-seventeenth of their salary. The union did not want any players to have to give up a game check.

        With the average player's salary at a base of $525,000, the average NFL player would have had to forfeit a check worth almost $31,000 if the league played only 15 games per team.

        “You still get a full season. Nobody will eat anything,” said Bengals cornerback Tom Carter, the team's player rep. “The wild card was additional revenue. We told the guys on the call to just step up the game if you want to make the playoffs. It clears every thing up.”

        The Bengals will play their final three games against division opponents. They will be at Baltimore on Dec.23 and at home against Pittsburgh on Dec.30 before going to Tennessee.

        Owners also win with the plan. If Week 2 games had been canceled instead of rescheduled, owners estimated their per-team loss to be $3 million-$5 million.

        If the playoff field is reduced to eight spots, some good teams will miss the postseason.

        Since 1990, when the NFL went to the 12-team playoff setup, only two of the 32 teams that went 10-6 missed the postseason. In that time, 25 teams that went 9-7 also made the playoffs — including the 1990 Bengals.

        But Tagliabue's intention is to have a full 12-team postseason.

        “We're not going to look that far ahead,” LeBeau said.

Q&A with Mark Curnutte NFL moves Week 2 schedule to end Bengals' challenge: Running on Ravens

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