I bet we see an NFL playoff argument

[hormone]

Every so often (especially with NFL parity) we hear about ranking teams differently. I'm calling it this year. We will hear this argument in a few months. It will come via the NFC South.

Just a few short years ago, I felt this was the best/toughest div. in the league. You had ATL with Vick and Co, Car was always good, TB was coming off a SB win, and the Saints were pretty decent. Now, with parity and injury, it's the opposite. In fact, it might be the worst. TB is on their third string RB, Caro is on their 3rd QB or a banged up backup, NO was a one hit wonder, and ATL lost their hero because of off field issues. One of these clubs can go 6-10 and maybe win the division with that record thus being automatically qualified for a home playoff game. The kicker will be that a team that could be like 10-6 could be the away team.

Do you feel this is fair? I think I still do. You can't help you and your division sucking, but you did win the division. Also, if a better team comes to visit, they will probably dispose of them anyway. If you go by record, what's the point of a division then?

Thoughts on ranking the teams by record or by division?

[rams80]

Division winners should get home games. Period. The NFL places an emphasis on winning the division (4 slots to division winners vs. 2 for Wild Cards per Conference), and 3/8s of a team's schedule is played withing the division (as opposed to the 3/8 dedicated to the rest of the Conference). If you win a division, and survive the rivalries that come with playing in the division, you deserve a home game.

The NFC South winner will be 9-7, 8-8 at worst. Not 6-10.

[illwauk]

If you seed the teams by record, it defeats the whole purpose of having divisions.

[PeytonManningRocks]

Technically it is even possible for a 3-13 team to win your division in the NFL (if every team in the division wins only the home games in their division, each team would have a division record of 3-3, so if they lose the rest of their games they could technically finish 3-13). But the prospects of a team even finishing under .500 and winning the division are ridiculous.

And to answer the question, you win your division, you host a playoff game. That's what it should be....you shouldn't be rewarded for not finishing in first.

[Mac the Knife]

And to answer the question, you win your division, you host a playoff game. That's what it should be....you shouldn't be rewarded for not finishing in first.

I agree, but with a caveat that I think most NFL fans would agree with.

If you win your division you've earned a home playoff game, unless your team finishes 8-8-0 or below .500, and one of the two 'wild-card' qualifiers finishes at least 11-5-0. In that scenario, I think the wild-card team is probably more deserving.

Personally I like Lamar Hunt's failed proposal from a few years ago: expand the NFL playoffs to 7 teams per conference, giving the #1 seed a bye from the first round and having #'s 2-7, 3-6 and 4-5 slug it out in the wild-card round. Granted you'd have a greater chance of an 8-8-0 or even 7-9-0 team making the playoffs, but it'd be fun to watch.

[PeytonManningRocks]

And to answer the question, you win your division, you host a playoff game. That's what it should be....you shouldn't be rewarded for not finishing in first.

I agree, but with a caveat that I think most NFL fans would agree with.

If you win your division you've earned a home playoff game, unless your team finishes 8-8-0 or below .500, and one of the two 'wild-card' qualifiers finishes at least 11-5-0. In that scenario, I think the wild-card team is probably more deserving.

Personally I like Lamar Hunt's failed proposal from a few years ago: expand the NFL playoffs to 7 teams per conference, giving the #1 seed a bye from the first round and having #'s 2-7, 3-6 and 4-5 slug it out in the wild-card round. Granted you'd have a greater chance of an 8-8-0 or even 7-9-0 team making the playoffs, but it'd be fun to watch.

That may be true, but how often has a division winner even finished .500? If I recall it's only happened once.

And the playoffs are fine just the way they are. No need for a 7th team in each conference, especially with the NFC as weak as it is now.

[Mac the Knife]

And to answer the question, you win your division, you host a playoff game. That's what it should be....you shouldn't be rewarded for not finishing in first.

I agree, but with a caveat that I think most NFL fans would agree with.

If you win your division you've earned a home playoff game, unless your team finishes 8-8-0 or below .500, and one of the two 'wild-card' qualifiers finishes at least 11-5-0. In that scenario, I think the wild-card team is probably more deserving.

Personally I like Lamar Hunt's failed proposal from a few years ago: expand the NFL playoffs to 7 teams per conference, giving the #1 seed a bye from the first round and having #'s 2-7, 3-6 and 4-5 slug it out in the wild-card round. Granted you'd have a greater chance of an 8-8-0 or even 7-9-0 team making the playoffs, but it'd be fun to watch.

That may be true, but how often has a division winner even finished .500? If I recall it's only happened once.

And the playoffs are fine just the way they are. No need for a 7th team in each conference, especially with the NFC as weak as it is now.

It's rare, sure, but that's all the more reason in my opinion to do something like that. A 9-7-0 record has won the division several times just in the period since the league went to four divisions in 2002 - including an AFC East in 2002 that saw three teams go 9-7, and a fourth go 8-8.

I'm also in favor of scrapping the AFC/NFC setup when it comes to the playoffs, awarding the four (or six) wild-card berths to teams regardless of their AFC/NFC alignment. The days when people saw themselves as an AFC (or more to the point, AFL) fan or an NFC/NFL fan are pretty much over, and it'd help add to the likelihood that we'd see the two best teams in football each year. Can you imagine Patriots v. Colts in a Super Bowl as opposed to an AFC title game, for example?

[rams80]

I'm also in favor of scrapping the AFC/NFC setup when it comes to the playoffs, awarding the four (or six) wild-card berths to teams regardless of their AFC/NFC alignment. The days when people saw themselves as an AFC (or more to the point, AFL) fan or an NFC/NFL fan are pretty much over, and it'd help add to the likelihood that we'd see the two best teams in football each year. Can you imagine Patriots v. Colts in a Super Bowl as opposed to an AFC title game, for example?

I don't know, I think the divide is still alive and well. I've thought of myself as a "NFC fan" before when the subject has come up. (Although maybe the harping about the possible variation in quality between the two Conferences might be the cause of that.

(BTW, the "dominant" AFC is 12-10 against the NFC this year. )

[Mac the Knife]

I'm also in favor of scrapping the AFC/NFC setup when it comes to the playoffs, awarding the four (or six) wild-card berths to teams regardless of their AFC/NFC alignment. The days when people saw themselves as an AFC (or more to the point, AFL) fan or an NFC/NFL fan are pretty much over, and it'd help add to the likelihood that we'd see the two best teams in football each year. Can you imagine Patriots v. Colts in a Super Bowl as opposed to an AFC title game, for example?

I don't know, I think the divide is still alive and well. I've thought of myself as a "NFC fan" before when the subject has come up. (Although maybe the harping about the possible variation in quality between the two Conferences might be the cause of that.

(BTW, the "dominant" AFC is 12-10 against the NFC this year. )

But if suddenly there were no AFC or NFC, your personal interest in the NFL wouldn't diminish a bit I bet, nor would anyone else's. It mattered in the 1970's, when the memory of the AFL/NFL war was fresh in everyone's mind, but nowadays the AFL teams are fully absorbed, there are only three AFL owners still around from the 1970 merger, the Seattle Seahawks have gone from the NFC to the AFC, then back to the NFC... the split just doesn't have the meaning it once did, and ditching it in an effort to have a better playoff format to me at least would make sense.

[Mac the Knife]

Sorry gang. A rare double-post.

[rams80]

I'm also in favor of scrapping the AFC/NFC setup when it comes to the playoffs, awarding the four (or six) wild-card berths to teams regardless of their AFC/NFC alignment. The days when people saw themselves as an AFC (or more to the point, AFL) fan or an NFC/NFL fan are pretty much over, and it'd help add to the likelihood that we'd see the two best teams in football each year. Can you imagine Patriots v. Colts in a Super Bowl as opposed to an AFC title game, for example?

I don't know, I think the divide is still alive and well. I've thought of myself as a "NFC fan" before when the subject has come up. (Although maybe the harping about the possible variation in quality between the two Conferences might be the cause of that.

(BTW, the "dominant" AFC is 12-10 against the NFC this year. )

But if suddenly there were no AFC or NFC, your personal interest in the NFL wouldn't diminish a bit I bet, nor would anyone else's. It mattered in the 1970's, when the memory of the AFL/NFL war was fresh in everyone's mind, but nowadays the AFL teams are fully absorbed, there are only three AFL owners still around from the 1970 merger, the Seattle Seahawks have gone from the NFC to the AFC, then back to the NFC... the split just doesn't have the meaning it once did, and ditching it in an effort to have a better playoff format to me at least would make sense.

If you were to have teams crossover, you would probably have to schedule more interconference games. It's not exactly fair either to spend 3/4 of your season playing within your conference, and then the folks who you only play a 1/4 of your games against swipe an extra spot.

[Mac the Knife]

If you were to have teams crossover, you would probably have to schedule more interconference games. It's not exactly fair either to spend 3/4 of your season playing within your conference, and then the folks who you only play a 1/4 of your games against swipe an extra spot.

That's just it - there wouldn't be any interconference games to deal with!

To retain a 16-game regular season, just have each team...

-- play the three teams in its division twice each (home and home), for 6 games;

-- play the similarly placed club (based on previous season's record, 1st place finisher vs. 1st place finisher, etc.) from each of the league's other seven divisions once each, for 7 games; and

-- play, on a rotating basis, the three teams from one of the other divisions (excluding the team scheduled because of similar place finish), for 3 games.

From there, have your eight division champions seeded #1 through #8, and your wild-card qualifiers seeded #9 through #14. The #1 and #2 seeds get a pass from the first round, with 3-14, 4-13, 5-12, 6-11, 7-10, and 8-9 meeting in Wild Card Playoffs. Re-seed after the Wild Card round and have a Divisional Round with 1-8, 2-7, 3-6 and 4-5. Re-seed after the Divisional Round and have a Semi-Final, then the Super Bowl.

[Luigi74]

The only reason they are keeping the AFC-NFC around is for tv contracts.

[rams80]

If you were to have teams crossover, you would probably have to schedule more interconference games. It's not exactly fair either to spend 3/4 of your season playing within your conference, and then the folks who you only play a 1/4 of your games against swipe an extra spot.

That's just it - there wouldn't be any interconference games to deal with!

To retain a 16-game regular season, just have each team...

-- play the three teams in its division twice each (home and home), for 6 games;

-- play the similarly placed club (based on previous season's record, 1st place finisher vs. 1st place finisher, etc.) from each of the league's other seven divisions once each, for 7 games; and

-- play, on a rotating basis, the three teams from one of the other divisions (excluding the team scheduled because of similar place finish), for 3 games.

From there, have your eight division champions seeded #1 through #8, and your wild-card qualifiers seeded #9 through #14. The #1 and #2 seeds get a pass from the first round, with 3-14, 4-13, 5-12, 6-11, 7-10, and 8-9 meeting in Wild Card Playoffs. Re-seed after the Wild Card round and have a Divisional Round with 1-8, 2-7, 3-6 and 4-5. Re-seed after the Divisional Round and have a Semi-Final, then the Super Bowl.

I don't like how you are basing so much of a team's schedule strength on how they finish in the previous season. Yes, the media likes to play up "1st place schedule vs. Last place schedule", but under the current system, how you finished only determines your opponents in two games. In a way, this even further strengthens the role divisions play in the current NFL schedule; the division essentially plays the same schedule. In addition, there are some traditional conference rivalries that I think need to be played more than once every seven years at least. I just don't think it's worth this kind of change just because one Conference's #7 team may be better than the other's #6 team. IMO, Pittsburgh's run two years ago was an aberration; seeds that low will get bounced before the championship anyway.

[Mac the Knife]

I don't like how you are basing so much of a team's schedule strength on how they finish in the previous season. Yes, the media likes to play up "1st place schedule vs. Last place schedule", but under the current system, how you finished only determines your opponents in two games. In a way, this even further strengthens the role divisions play in the current NFL schedule; the division essentially plays the same schedule. In addition, there are some traditional conference rivalries that I think need to be played more than once every seven years at least. I just don't think it's worth this kind of change just because one Conference's #7 team may be better than the other's #6 team. IMO, Pittsburgh's run two years ago was an aberration; seeds that low will get bounced before the championship anyway.

The method I used was only slightly modified (simplified) from that the NFL used prior to 2002, actually. And the fact that only two games are determined by placement is a flaw, not an asset. While I admit I like the symmetry of the NFL's post-2002 realignment scheduling format, it erodes one element of the parody that Pete Rozelle so desired.

[nwtrailtrekker]

you gotta remember they're gonna have to play each other, so theres some wins there. they might be 8-8 best. the Buccaneers that is. theyre gonna win it.

haha

i hope the hawks play em

[rams80]

I don't like how you are basing so much of a team's schedule strength on how they finish in the previous season. Yes, the media likes to play up "1st place schedule vs. Last place schedule", but under the current system, how you finished only determines your opponents in two games. In a way, this even further strengthens the role divisions play in the current NFL schedule; the division essentially plays the same schedule. In addition, there are some traditional conference rivalries that I think need to be played more than once every seven years at least. I just don't think it's worth this kind of change just because one Conference's #7 team may be better than the other's #6 team. IMO, Pittsburgh's run two years ago was an aberration; seeds that low will get bounced before the championship anyway.

The method I used was only slightly modified (simplified) from that the NFL used prior to 2002, actually. And the fact that only two games are determined by placement is a flaw, not an asset. While I admit I like the symmetry of the NFL's post-2002 realignment scheduling format, it erodes one element of the parody that Pete Rozelle so desired.

The old NFL schedule mixed a reasonable amount of mediocrity into the schedules of even the best teams. Personally, I don't like how your schedule makes it very probable that we will see a revolving door when it comes to teams making the playoffs. While that might boost interest in last place teams, some playoff consistency would be nice. I also like how the current schedule also guarantees each team to play each other at least once every four years. Your plan reduces it to once every seven.