NFL Playoff Format Revisited

This year there has been much more wailing and gnashing of teeth over playoff teams sitting starters late in the season. The current official stance by the NFL is playoff teams earn the right to play whoever they want by clinching early. Some critics maintain that it is unfair for teams to sit starters when it could affect the final playoff teams and seeding.

A few ideas have been floated about how to fix this problem. Among those ideas is awarding draft picks. That may be the stupidest thing I've heard in a while. That's what the NFL really needs to do...reward playoff teams with more draft picks. Commissioner Roger Goodell stated that he will ask the competition committee to look at the issue.

So with that in mind, I thought I'd take a look at how the playoffs would shake out under my proposed playoff system I made last year.

A brief overview of my rules, which really are tweaking the current rules, not drastically changing the current format.

1. The two division winners in each conference get the top two seeds and a first round bye.
2. All other playoff spots determined by record regardless of division finishes.
3. If two or more teams tie with the same record, the division winner advances first.
4. The rest of the NFL tiebreakers go from this point on.

AFC
The top two seeds are 1. Colts and 2. Chargers. N
The wildcard teams are 3. Patriots 4. Bengals and four teams tied at 9-7. Nothing here changes since none are divisional winners. The current NFL tiebreakers apply and result with 5. Ravens and 6. Jets.

NFC
The top two seeds remain 1. Saints and 2. Vikings.
The wildcard teams are 3. Cowboys 4. Packers 5. Eagles 6. Cardinals
In my playoffs, the teams remain the same except for seeding. That would result in first round match ups of Cowboys vs. Cards and Packers vs. Eagles.

So what did this year's exercise accomplish. Nothing really. The only change resulted in a different seeding arrangement for the NFC and none for the AFC.

Why did I do it? Just to test the theory I came up with last year. About the only game that it might have changed would have been the week 17 match up between the Packers and Cardinals. The Cardinals might not have rolled over so easily if home field advantage was still at stake. Under the current system they were guaranteed a home game despite having a worse record than the Pack.

See how it works out next year. I may one of these days go back and back test the theory too.