Time and time again, the NFL’s current structure has created unfair results, with the best of the four worst teams assigned to a predetermined division earning a playoff spot and the home game that goes along with it.
This year, the NFC has two very strong divisions, a so-so division and a very weak division.
Here is the underlying reality. With the four NFC division winners getting tickets to the playoff party, the wild-card berths will go to three teams. And, currently, there are three teams in the NFC North and two in the NFC West that are potentially better than whoever wins the NFC East and NFC South.
Between the Vikings, Bears, Lions, Packers, 49ers, Seahawks and Rams, two will be crowned division winners. That leaves five for the wild card berths.
Ultimately, two of them will wind up outside the playoffs — even if both of those teams finish with better records than the top teams in the NFC East and NFC South.
During last Friday’s episode of PFT LiveI threw out an alternative approach that would be much fairer to all teams.
Instead of two conferences with a quartet of four-team divisions, why not switch to four eight-team divisions?
NFL East, NFL North, NFL South, NFL West. The easiest configuration would consist of including the current East, North, South, and West divisions in one conference each. While some tweaks may be needed to better align things geographically, it would be far fairer to guarantee a playoff spot (and a home game) to the best of eight teams, not the best of four.
Planning decisions would have to be made. The home-and-home series (a holdover from the days when there were far fewer teams) would have to be retired. Each team would play the other seven teams in its conference, with another 10 (or 11, inevitably) games.
The playoffs would consist of the four conference champions (with the top two receiving byes) and 10 wild-card teams. And there would be an added benefit — it would be possible for the top two teams to meet in the Super Bowl, regardless of the traditional AFL-NFL/AFC-NFC division.
It would be a league. A playoff tree. Any combination of teams, in theory, would be possible for the Super Bowl. When the dust settles in the semi-final round, the top two teams will remain.
That said, it won’t be easy to get owners to ditch the current format, which requires a four-of-one shot in any given year to host a playoff game. But if the goal is to constantly strive for ways to create more compelling matchups, an eight-team, four-conference approach makes a lot more sense than the current structure.
Football is a meritocracy. A four-, eight-team conference configuration would be far more conducive to this ideal.
Will it happen? Maybe not. Should it be taken seriously by the league? Absolutely.
Maybe this year, when the NFC East and NFC South offer neither of the above champions and two very consistent teams are sent home after Week 18, it will spark a real conversation about meaningful change.
