NFL may look into changing playoff format.
- Thread starter DesotoCountyDawg
- Start date
What is the point of a Division if winning it is meaningless?
I'm not sure why you'd have divisions at that point? If you're going to have them, at least 1 home playoff game is a good reward for winning yours
Winning your division guarantees a playoff spot.
Sure, but for every time a weak division winner gets a home playoff game they maybe didn't deserve, a 2nd place team will run up an impressive record by having a couple sorry teams in their division.
I kinda like the current set up, or just go back to the prior one. I haven't seen much to suggest deserving teams are getting left out.
I’m ambivalent about it. There’s pros and cons to either way. Word is the owners want to keep it like it is currently.
I see both sides of this. On the one hand, why have divisions if you're not going to give a home game to division winners. On the other hand, there are too many divisions and too few teams in each division. Some divisions are very weak, so you're rewarding a mediocre team that padded its already mediocre record with a weak schedule.
Instead of this change, they should go back to a normal kickoff like colleges still do. Is there any data to say that the current method is safer?
I don't know about data, but I don't see any way the current NFL kickoff wouldn't be safer. Biggest kickoff change I want to see right now is a touchback is ball at the 20 again. Way too easy to get a touchback and get into field goal position now.
This proposal just creates a brand new problem. Teams in difficult divisions now end up with a much tougher schedule because of the unbalanced schedule where you play division teams twice per year. So if you are so worried about fairness to make this change, then you also need to only play your division rivals once per year instead of twice. They need to just keep the system as it is. I hate the lessening of importance football is placing on conference championships in college and division championships in the pros.
What I would really like to see is eliminate the conferences. Combine East, West, North & South divisions into four 8-team divisions. Play everyone in your division, 3 teams in each of the other 3 divisions, plus your biggest division rival a 2nd time. This would help even out the scheduling imbalances, and would significantly cut back on meaningless games in last game of the season since fewer playoff seeds would be locked up.
This isn't bad - as a Saints fan, I want 2 shots at the dirty birds but don't care anything about extra games against the bucs and panthers
They don’t want to do that because it breaks up all the traditional rivalries more. It will never happen.
They like having 8 divisions of 4 for scheduling purposes and to try and create as much of a balance as possible.
Team vs your division home and away
Team vs an AFC division
Team vs an NFC Division
Remaining schedule is against teams that finished in the same place as you from other divisions the previous season
It’s the best way to balance out and give bad teams a chance to have a better record the next season and the successful teams have harder schedules.
Couple of comments above. Like you say, they like having 8 divisions and it's not going to change.
It’s almost like no playoff scenario is fair. Unless everyone plays everyone and the top records are taken there will always be those that complain it’s not perfect.
I agree. I hate the constant need to tinker with things. PTSD from the John Cohen era of baseball, I guess....
Rule change I'd like to see is a graduated FG system. 25 yards and in is 2 points. 26-40 is 3 points. 41-55 is 4 points. 55+ is 5 points.
Enjoy the strategy of trying to punch it in for a TD or stop a drive early and go for the extra points. Also rewards a 57 yard FG more than a 22 yard chip shot.
There is discussion of going to the 4th and 20 “onside kick”.
The team wanting to onside would have to convert a 4th and 20 and if they did they would maintain possession.
The team wanting to onside would have to convert a 4th and 20 and if they did they would maintain possession.
I think this would be pretty cool but is potentially a pretty big change. How likely are you to complete a 4th and 20 versus an onside kick? But if people are doing it b/c they have to have the ball, I guess you'll see a lot of laterals when people are about to get tackled?
It would be pretty wild but I do think it’s more likely to be converted than an onside kick.
NFL wants to maximize fans, and to do that, they realize they all need 'hope'. That's why they have smaller divisions to ensure playoff spots are spread around. This change does nothing to hurt or help that in my opinion. NFL is about TV, so who cares about spreading home games around. But it also doesn't hurt to somewhat reward better teams. So keep it or change, not a big deal.
In the same vein, this is why college really should put LESS emphasis on their divisions/conferences, because most of them are now too big, and generally not equal in any way at all. They are nothing but scheduling alliances, to make TV money. At least the NFL's are geographically spread out and have the same number of teams in them. College is obsessed with this 'best' term and not as much about what happens on the field. It's a popularity contest and that's why it's never going to be as popular as the NFL. Best thing they can do at this point is expand to 16 to ensure that all possible worthy teams make it. I mean we still have independent teams out there with special deals, how can we make it about conferences? Makes no sense. Basically say, if you go undefeated, you're assured of a spot, to make sure deserving G5 teams have a chance, like Liberty last year. And even if they don't, they can still make it by beefing up the schedule, like Boise this year. Or just ensure one G5 team, whatever that criteria is (i.e. not SEC, B1G, ACC or Big 12) is guaranteed no matter what. This also rewards the #1 seed.
In the same vein, this is why college really should put LESS emphasis on their divisions/conferences, because most of them are now too big, and generally not equal in any way at all. They are nothing but scheduling alliances, to make TV money. At least the NFL's are geographically spread out and have the same number of teams in them. College is obsessed with this 'best' term and not as much about what happens on the field. It's a popularity contest and that's why it's never going to be as popular as the NFL. Best thing they can do at this point is expand to 16 to ensure that all possible worthy teams make it. I mean we still have independent teams out there with special deals, how can we make it about conferences? Makes no sense. Basically say, if you go undefeated, you're assured of a spot, to make sure deserving G5 teams have a chance, like Liberty last year. And even if they don't, they can still make it by beefing up the schedule, like Boise this year. Or just ensure one G5 team, whatever that criteria is (i.e. not SEC, B1G, ACC or Big 12) is guaranteed no matter what. This also rewards the #1 seed.
I think the NFL scheduling model is pretty much perfect. I love that the top teams play all the top teams and the bottom teams play other bottom teams. It gives you more marquee matchups for prime time and helps give more variety to the playoff teams from year to year.
Also, the division rivalries are actually very meaningful for the most part.
While we're talking about NFL playoff format, I still think that the setup for a conference #1 seed is WAY too generous. First round buy, home game against the worst remaining seed that just played in round 2, and then a home game in the conference championship against a team that may have just played in two straight playoff battles while you had a damn near cakewalk.
I'm all for the team that earned the #1 seed getting rewarded for their season, but the NFL takes it too far. Imagine a similar setup in the NCAA tournament. #1 seed gets a first weekend buy, their sweet 16/elite 8 games are home games against the worst remaining seed, and then their Final 4 contest is another home game against a team that's played 2x as many games as they've played over the last two weeks. It's ridiculous
I'm all for the team that earned the #1 seed getting rewarded for their season, but the NFL takes it too far. Imagine a similar setup in the NCAA tournament. #1 seed gets a first weekend buy, their sweet 16/elite 8 games are home games against the worst remaining seed, and then their Final 4 contest is another home game against a team that's played 2x as many games as they've played over the last two weeks. It's ridiculous
100% disagree. The regular season is long, and the top team deserves a big reward. Plus nobody in the NFL is a pushover, and home field means less than you think in the professional ranks.
How did you feel about Oregon getting the raw deal vs. Ohio State? That's what happens when you don't seed appropriately.
NFL gets it more right than anyone. You should reward excellence in the regular season.
The most simple solution, which would never fly, would be to realign into four divisions, two for AFC, two for NFC. I'd take it a step further and realign them all into North, South, East, and West, and give the conferences each a pair but that's too radical.
Fairly similar to my solution, which will also never fly, which is to eliminate conferences altogether (they're meaningless) and have 4 8-team divisions based roughly on geography (I think you've still got to keep Dallas in the East because of 3 big traditional rivalries).
The NFL and FBS will realize these seasons are too long. They may be making extra money, but they are taking a toll on the players. These organizations may stumble, but eventually, they will hit a wall, and these players are counting on being unable to play. I would like to see the FBS and NFL both cut their game by two during the regular season, and they don't need to play preseason games because nobody will play except people who might be cut.
You're more likely to see the next move for both NFL and FBS to be to add another game rather than cut one. More games = more revenue. It's as simple as that.
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