NFL to consider reseeding playoffs purely by record

[JohnnyGold]

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap2000000308443/article/nfl-to-consider-reseeding-playoffs-purely-by-record

What's the consensus of billszone.com to this one?

I say it's an awful idea--if you want to host a playoff game, win your division, it's as simple as that.

[Ed]

I'd be ok with that. It makes more sense for the better team to get the advantage of home field. With only 4 teams per division, it's not that hard for an entire division to suck. And if the two best teams happen to be in the same division, I don't see why the second best team should get penalized and a crap team get rewarded.

I don't feel that strongly either way though. Probably because my team is irrelevant and never makes the playoffs, so this won't ever effect them either way.

[Thurmal]

Division winners always need to make the playoffs. But if you win a bad division with 8 wins, you shouldn't get to host a playoff game against a team that came in 2nd in a great division with 12 wins.

[Buffalogic]

Yeah, either way is fine by me. Not that big of a deal in my eyes.

[Generalissimus Gibby]

I've long been a fan of redoing the way playoff rankings are done. Yes, if you win your division, you should get in. However, if a wildcard team has a better record than you, then you should have to play them on the road.

[imbondz]

I hate it. The Chiefs this year are the 5th / 6th best team. They'd be reseeded to 3rd but couldn't beat Denver either time.

Winning division should count for a higher seed.

[SquishDaFish]

Love it. Needs to be like the NHL IMO

[DraftBoy]

I hate it. The Chiefs this year are the 5th / 6th best team. They'd be reseeded to 3rd but couldn't beat Denver either time.

Winning division should count for a higher seed.

But they would still be seeded behind Denver...

[TacklingDummy]

2 divisions, play every team in division once, every team plays one game outside of division. Best records in each division get into playoffs.

[OpIv37]

If they would have done this 14 ****ing years ago, then the Music City Mirage would have been played in Buffalo and Tennessee never would have got that bull**** hometown call. We were 11-5 that year, they were 9-7.

[Thurmal]

The Titans were like 12-4 or 13-3 that year, though.

That call was bull**** though. As were the calls at the end of the first half when Peerless Price caught a ball at the one and was inexplicably ruled out of bounds, and when Del Greco was allowed to re-try a missed kick from 15 closer b/c Gabe Northern was called for unsportsmanlike defensive holding on a freaking kick.

League was definitely trying to push the new franchise through to sell tickets and new uniforms.

[stuckincincy]

Seems to me that such a change would diminish the special value you get by beating a division opponent. You would think less about "tailoring" your team to play best against your division rival's strengths.

In fact, the NFL just went to more division games being scheduled later in the season, to spur competition, and to combat the behavior of clubs to more or less dump the last few games in their season if they have their division sewed up. IND comes to mind. Folks that went to a late IND game got to watch the bench, not Manning and the starters.

[OpIv37]

The Titans were like 12-4 or 13-3 that year, though.

That call was bull**** though. As were the calls at the end of the first half when Peerless Price caught a ball at the one and was inexplicably ruled out of bounds, and when Del Greco was allowed to re-try a missed kick from 15 closer b/c Gabe Northern was called for unsportsmanlike defensive holding on a freaking kick.

League was definitely trying to push the new franchise through to sell tickets and new uniforms.

I stand corrected- I don't know why I thought they were only 9-7 that year.

[YardRat]

Non-conference games would then play too large of a role in the playoff format, which is unfair to me. Why should a wildcard with an 11-5 record, helped by being 4-0 against a ****ty NFC East division (but 7-5 within their own conference), get home field advantage over a division winner with a 10-6 record that played against tougher NFC West teams and went 1-3 (9-3 conference record)? Unless, of course, you completely revamp the entire structure as TDummy suggests.

[OpIv37]

Non-conference games would then play too large of a role in the playoff format, which is unfair to me. Why should a wildcard with an 11-5 record, helped by being 4-0 against a ****ty NFC East division (but 7-5 within their own conference), get home field advantage over a division winner with a 10-6 record that played against tougher NFC West teams and went 1-3 (9-3 conference record)? Unless, of course, you completely revamp the entire structure as TDummy suggests.

Well why should SF- who won 12 games in a division with 3 10+ win teams- have to go on the road to play Green Bay, who won their piss-poor division on a mere 8 wins?

Hell, a few years ago, Seattle got to host a playoff game with a LOSING 7-9 record. That's crap.

[TacklingDummy]

Well why should SF- who won 12 games in a division with 3 10+ win teams- have to go on the road to play Green Bay, who won their piss-poor division on a mere 8 wins?

Hell, a few years ago, Seattle got to host a playoff game with a LOSING 7-9 record. That's crap.

AFC/NFC
Play everyone in division once.
1 game outside division.
Divisions ranked by record.
Everything is fair.
Best teams get in.
Problems solved.

Personally i don't care about playing NE, NJJ, and Miami twice.
Every other year at home might make things even more interesting.

[JohnnyGold]

Reposted from my post on reddit:

Simple solution to please the owners and the fans: expand the league by 4 teams. 2 Los Angeles franchises (one in the American Conference, one in the National Conference), a franchise in London, and either a franchise in Toronto or Mexico. This raises the number of teams per conference to 18. Divide the conferences into divisions of 6, of which there would be three of.

Amend the current scheduling formula as follows:
* 2 games (home and away) against each opponent within your division, for 10 games.
* 1st and 2nd place teams (from the previous season) play corresponding first and second place teams from each division within their conference, for 4 games. (example: 1st place in the AFC East plays first and second place teams in the AFC Central, and first and second place teams in the AFC West... the AFC South no longer exists in this scenario, obviously).
* 1 game each vs. the corresponding placed team (from the previous season) in the opposing conference, for 3 games. (example: last place in the AFC East plays last place in the NFC East, Central, and West.)

This totals 17 regular season games--in exchange for eliminating 2 preseason games. In addition, regardless of conference, the 18 "worst" teams from the previous season would be the ones awarded the extra home game--in exactly the same fashion as NFL draft order, without the possibility of trades ever occurring (17 regular season games=9 home/8 away for the bad teams, 8 home 9 away for the good teams).

Expand the playoffs to 8 teams from each conference (8 teams out of 18 is still less than half the conference making the playoffs, which is a great thing, in my opinion.) This way, each division winner hosts a playoff game in the first round, AND the wildcard team with the best record gets to host a playoff game. This would also ensure that the 2 best wild card teams would be playing each other on the first weekend of playoff games (4 vs. 5 seed), and would drastically reduce the likelihood of a far superior team going on the road to play a weaker team in the first round.

Because the bye week would be eliminated for the teams with the 2 best records in the conference, reward them with a re-seeding in the second round of the playoffs, so if the 7 seed snuck past the 2 seed, the would still need to travel to the #1 seed the following week (assuming the 1 seed won.)

[YardRat]

Well why should SF- who won 12 games in a division with 3 10+ win teams- have to go on the road to play Green Bay, who won their piss-poor division on a mere 8 wins?

Hell, a few years ago, Seattle got to host a playoff game with a LOSING 7-9 record. That's crap.

Did you miss the reference to TD's idea I made, or did I leave it out? Here, let me check...


Non-conference games would then play too large of a role in the playoff format, which is unfair to me. Why should a wildcard with an 11-5 record, helped by being 4-0 against a ****ty NFC East division (but 7-5 within their own conference), get home field advantage over a division winner with a 10-6 record that played against tougher NFC West teams and went 1-3 (9-3 conference record)? Unless, of course, you completely revamp the entire structure as TDummy suggests.

Nope. there it is, so either you ignored it, or didn't understand it.

Unless you completely revamp the structure, and simplify it, as TD suggested, there will always be quirks with the standings and seedings that are 'unfair'. Why should Seattle win the division over SF with respective division records of 4-2 and 5-1? Why should Arizona not be in the playoffs over Green Bay?

[Skooby]

There's divisional winners that had an incentive to beat their rivals there versus outside games now, which is what this new idea for seeding is intending to eliminate. All games played will matter because of record, so let's name the new division Adams / Norris....

[OpIv37]

Wait- you just complained about teams with a weaker div record winning the div, then in the same breath, complained about a div winner getting preference over a team with a better record that didn't win because they were in a strong division.

So what criteria are you using? Div wins? Conf wins? Overall wins? Pick something and stick to it.

[Mouldsie]

Good idea

[BertSquirtgum]

AFC/NFC
Play everyone in division once.
1 game outside division.
Divisions ranked by record.
Everything is fair.
Best teams get in.
Problems solved.

Personally i don't care about playing NE, NJJ, and Miami twice.
Every other year at home might make things even more interesting.

I like this idea.

[YardRat]

Wait- you just complained about teams with a weaker div record winning the div, then in the same breath, complained about a div winner getting preference over a team with a better record that didn't win because they were in a strong division.

So what criteria are you using? Div wins? Conf wins? Overall wins? Pick something and stick to it.

I'm not complaining about anything, just pointing out the characteristics of playoff formats. You are the one *****ing about San Fran having to go to Green Bay, or NO having to travel to Seattle. Simply changing one aspect only changes a few idiosyncrasies, it doesn't necessarily make it 'more fair'.

To reiterate...again...the only way to minimize 'unfairness' would be to align the conferences as TDummy suggested.

[better days]

Division winners always need to make the playoffs. But if you win a bad division with 8 wins, you shouldn't get to host a playoff game against a team that came in 2nd in a great division with 12 wins.

If a team comes in 2nd with 12 wins, it is NOT a great division, it is a TERRIBLE division with two VERY GOOD teams.

The other two teams in that division would have to be TERRIBLE & not win a game in the division for that to remotely happen.

[Mr. Pink]

If a team comes in 2nd with 12 wins, it is NOT a great division, it is a TERRIBLE division with two VERY GOOD teams.

The other two teams in that division would have to be TERRIBLE & not win a game in the division for that to remotely happen.

NFC West
Hawks 13-3
49ers 12-4
Cardinals 10-6
Rams 7-9

No team in that division is terrible. No team went winless in division games.

[JohnnyGold]

In my personal opinion, teams in different divisions (within the same conference) don't share enough common opponents to make basing homefield advantage on record a viable option.

And all of this hubub over the Cardinals not getting in? LOL.

Not only did they not win the division... they didn't get the first wild card... and not only did they not get the first wild card... they didn't get the SECOND wild card either! Damn--3 paths into the playoffs and they couldn't get a single one of them? They must not be THAT good of a team!

I hate hate hate hate the idea of expanding the playoff field to 7 per conference. If there are already teams with 8 wins getting in, do we really need to add a team that is (potentially) 7-9 getting in every year?

[imbondz]

the Chiefs!

[Historian]

Back in the day, the playoff sites were rotated.

That's why the 11-5 Bills who had won in SD in 1980, had to go to SD or a playoff game.

And why the 14-0 Dolphins played in the AFC Championship Game in Pittsburgh.

[The Jokeman]

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap2000000308443/article/nfl-to-consider-reseeding-playoffs-purely-by-record

What's the consensus of billszone.com to this one?

I say it's an awful idea--if you want to host a playoff game, win your division, it's as simple as that.

Then why bother having divisions? It's a dumb idea.