Owners to vote on changing NFL playoff seeding

[comet52]

Imagine the Vikings win the North at 10-7 and some team in another division goes 11-6 and gets a second place wild card to a 13-4 team. Now the Vikings end up traveling to the 11-6 wild card for a game. But in this case maybe the Vikings played a much tougher schedule. Just like last year, the Vikings won 14 games but played a relatively weak schedule.

The idea that all that matters is a w/l count seems silly to me in a sport where you only play 17 games and a lot of teams don't even face each other during the season. In sports where you play 80 or 160 games a year this makes more sense because the volume evens things out. It's not going to be better, it's just going to open up even more complaining about "fairness" than we already have, since this situation of a team with more wins traveling to a team with fewer only happens about once every 10 years.

Also, the wildcard game where the weak Seahawks beat the Saints with the better record, the Beast-Mode game, remains one of my favorite all time NFL moments. I don't beleive that overemphasizing a strict w/l count equals "fairness" when it's easy to poke holes in the idea. The NFL doesn't need more fairness, it needs more balance between offense and defense. Giving teams the ball at the 35 after kickoffs for example. Why not just play flag football for god's sake. Let's make everything easy, fair, outlaw hitting and defending and handout participation trophies for all! Maybe have a 32 team playoff too. It's more fair!

[Montana Tom]

It should pass, its common sense. You play games outside your division. Seeding should always be best records at the top and work down. If you aren't going to be rewarded with home playoff games with wins, why win games at a certain point if you can only be a certain level seed? Division champs will always have a place in the playoffs, but put them where they belong.

I do agree with you.
A sucky division and you win the division, you are guaranteed a spot in the playoffs at 9-8.  Heck it could possibly be a sub-500 record, 8-9 with some of these weak divisions are possible.
But that should not guarantee you a first round home game.

I've considered the pro's and con's of this...I really think they should vote to change it, only in the interest of fairness.

And now we wait.

[StickierBuns]

And so much for that:

Adam Schefter
@AdamSchefter
·
5m
Lions withdrew their playoff reseeding proposal.

[comet52]

And so much for that:

Adam Schefter
@AdamSchefter
·
5m
Lions withdrew their playoff reseeding proposal.

Common sense prevails.

[MaroonBells]

Common sense prevails.

Really? You're actually for keeping it the way it is? It makes sense to you that a team with a losing record could potentially host a 14-3 team? In what world is that common sense?

[greediron]

IMO I think the division winners should get to host in the first round, but after that it should go by record. Dunno, I just like winning the division to mean something in the playoffs.

[StickierBuns]

Really? You're actually for keeping it the way it is? It makes sense to you that a team with a losing record could potentially host a 14-3 team? In what world is that common sense?

Agreed. I think its actually the opposite of common sense.

[JimmyinSD]

IMO I think the division winners should get to host in the first round, but after that it should go by record.  Dunno, I just like winning the division to mean something in the playoffs.

I could go along with that if they made the playoffs different.  Take division winner and give them a bye in the WC round.  have the wc round be the #2 team of each division hosting the #3 team, then have those WC winners play the winner of their division for round 1, then the winner that round meet for round 2 and so on with the team with the best record hosting all the way through except for the SB,  you will likely have a few lopsided games in round 2 when those weaker division winners travel to the better divisional round winners,  but this way you really make the division worth something.

I just really dont like the current system where a shitty team gets an easier path than a team that had a harder path through the season.

[comet52]

Really? You're actually for keeping it the way it is? It makes sense to you that a team with a losing record could potentially host a 14-3 team? In what world is that common sense?

Some outlier scenario that happens once a decade isn't reason to me to overhaul it. NFL teams don't play balanced schedules or each other in every season so wins by themselves aren't the only measure of a team's strength. Divisions and the small # of overall games played are what create rivalries and interest. Leagues that play 80 game schedules can ignore divisions and seed playoffs in order because they play so many games and their schedules have more balance over time. But their meaningless division races aren't of any real interest to fans, no one cares until the playoffs start.

It's not broken, don't fix it- common sense. Tinkering with every little thing in the name of "fairness" is not going to make the game better. JMO.

[MaroonBells]

Some outlier scenario that happens once a decade isn't reason to me to overhaul it.  NFL teams don't play balanced schedules or each other in every season so wins by themselves aren't the only measure of a team's strength.  Divisions and the small # of overall games played are what create rivalries and interest.  Leagues that play 80 game schedules can ignore divisions and seed playoffs in order because they play so many games and their schedules have more balance over time.  But their meaningless division races aren't of any real interest to fans, no one cares until the playoffs start. 

It's not broken, don't fix it- common sense.  Tinkering with every little thing in the name of "fairness" is not going to make the game better.  JMO.

If things were as they were in the 80s and 90s when divisions were fairly evenly matched, this wouldn't be a thing. But I think the reason this was brought up this year and will likely be brought up again next year is because of the current balance of power in the NFL. Right now, we have two unusually strong divisions and two unusually weak divisions. In other words, this will not be a once-in-a-decade thing. Will things eventually even out again? Probably, but not any time soon. 

What's more, it's not like you are punishing division winners. They are still guaranteed a playoff berth, they still get the banners and the bonus money. The only thing they don't get to do is host a game against a team with a better record, which is just common sense.