We live in a society that tends to overreact. Anytime something out of the ordinary happens, say for example, a child gets on the wrong bus after school and gets lost for a few hours, there is a huge uproar and everyone wants to know how this could have possibly happened and what could be done about it.
My old job at PITT was like that. Anytime an error occurred, there had to be a meeting to figure out why it happened and how to prevent it from ever happening again. Instead of just chalking it up to human error, we always had to make new policies and constantly change protocol.
Human error was certainly on display this NFL season in the NFC West. Teams with losing records were in contention the entire year and the division came down to the last regular season game with the Seahawks at 6-9 hosting the St. Louis Rams at 7-8 for the division title and the right to host a postseason game.
I know the Powers That Be in the NFL had to be secretly rooting for the Rams to win. A team entering the playoffs with an 8-8 record wouldn't be unprecedented, but a sub-.500 team had never made the playoffs. That is until the Seattle Seahawks knocked off the Rams, 16-6, to claim the NFC West crown. At 7-9, they are the 4th seed in the NFC and will host the 11-5 New Orleans Saints this weekend in the first round of the playoffs.
Last I checked, the Saints were 10 1/2 point favorites as the road team. I wonder if a home-team has ever been a double-digit underdog for a postseason game.
Anyway, there have been some complaints over the Seahawks getting into the postseason with a losing record and some have wondered if the NFL should do something to tweak the playoff format to prevent it from happening again.
I've heard people say that maybe they could change it to where a team with a losing record will miss the playoffs even if they win the division like the Seahawks, and they would be replaced with the team with the most wins of the remaining playoff contenders.
If that were the case this season, the Giants would have qualified for the playoffs at 10-6.
I hope they don't do something like that. If they do that, why even have divisions?
I mean, teams with poor records have been making it to the playoffs for years. Is there really much of a difference between 9-7 and 7-9? Not really. The only difference is 9-7 looks passable. Kind of like the difference between a D and an F on a term paper.
Heck, you can go all the way back to the late 70's when the Los Angeles Rams made it all the way to the Super Bowl with a 9-7 record. Just two seasons ago, the 9-7 Arizona Cardinals also made it to the Super Bowl.
When I was a kid, back in the mid-80's, there wasn't a more mediocre division in all of professional sports than the old AFC Central. In 1983, the Steelers won the division with a 10-6 record. Not bad, right? Well, in 1984, they won the division again, but with a 9-7 record, and they somehow managed to make it all the way to the AFC championship game in Miami against the Dolphins. And the very next year, the Cleveland Browns won the division with an 8-8 mark, and they were about a minute away from hosting the AFC championship game before losing in the last seconds in Miami.
I was only about 12 or 13 back then so if there was a lot of controversy over the AFC Central teams getting into the playoffs with such poor records, I don't remember.
But I do know there wasn't an overhaul in the playoff format. Not until 1990 when a 6th seed was added in each conference.
That all but eliminated division winners with mediocre records from having a bye in the wildcard round. Back in 1979, when the Rams made it to the Super Bowl with their 9-7 record, they had to go on the road, but at least they only had to play two games. Clearly an advantage.
Same thing with the Steelers in 1984. They were on the road throughout the playoffs, but they only had to play two games, because, back then, all division winners had byes.
Starting in 1990, only the top two division winners in each conference received byes. The division winner with the third best record earned the 3rd seed but had to play in the wildcard round. There were three wildcard teams with the 6th seed playing at the 3rd seed and the 4th seed hosting the 5th seed.
After the league realigned in 2002 and added a 4th division in each conference, the playoff format was essentially the same, only the 4th seed was a divisional winner and not an at-large wildcard team. Only the 5th and 6th seeds were true wildcards.
If they do decide to tweak the system this time around, I fear their solution would be to add two more teams in each conference. That would be nice for the Giants and Buccaneers this season, who both missed out on the playoffs with 10-6 records, but what about years when there aren't teams with 10-6 records fighting for those last playoff spots? The likely hood is teams making the playoffs with losing records would become more common. And also, with 8 teams, there is no way the NFL could still have bye weeks unless it added two more weeks to the playoffs and we'd be hosting Super Bowl parties at the end of February.
A bye is a nice little carrot to dangle in front of a team at the end of the year. If you eliminate the possibility of earning a bye, you might have even more meaningless games at the end of the regular season.
Personally, I don't think they should change anything, but if they do decide to make a change, in my opinion, the only logical solution would be to change the seeding process. Instead of a division winner earning a specific seed, the seeds are awarded based on records and tiebreakers.
For example, this season, in the AFC, the Patriots and Steelers would still be the top 2 seeds, but the Ravens would get the 3rd seed because of their 12-4 record and would host the 6th seeded Chiefs in the first round of the playoffs. The Chiefs would still be division winners, but they'd be on the road. Same with the Colts. They'd still be AFC South Champions, but they'd be the 5th seed and would have to go on the road and play the 4th seeded Jets, who at 11-5, have a better record than both the Colts and Chiefs and thus would get the better seed despite being a wildcard team.
In the NFC, the Seahawks wouldn't get any home games at all throughout the playoffs because they would be the 6th seed rather than the 4th seed.
So, in my format, winning the division still gets you an automatic berth in the playoffs, but not necessarily a home game.
Anyone else have an opinion on this? What do you think of my proposed format?
Anyway, NFL, if you're going to make changes, please, don't overreact and do something stupid.
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