If your team wins the division with a .500 record, don’t panic. You will still host a playoff game, for now.
The NFL has voted to table the Detroit Lions’ proposal to determine playoff seeding based on record.
Under the current format, playoff sending is determined by winning your division. If a team wins its division, even if its regular-season record is worse than that of a Wild-Card team, it will host a playoff game because it won its division.
Under the Lions’ proposal, a division champ with a worse record would go on the road to play a Wild-Card team if that team has a better record.
The fear among those who oppose the Lions’ proposed playoff seeding change is that it will devalue winning your division championship.
“I’m hopeful that doesn’t go through,” Rams coach Sean McVay told Pro Football Talk Live. “I would be all for it — if we played all 15 NFC teams and then two cross-conference games. But when you’re playing six divisional games, then you’ve got the strength-of-schedule based on whatever the previous year’s record was, and finish, it’s not all the same. And so, I do think there is something to be said for winning your division. That means something.
“And until, really, there’s an adjustment in regards to like schedules, things of that nature, I think it’s going to be tough.”
McVay’s words carry weight because he is a member of the NFL Competition Committee.
However, as PFT notes, the fact that the proposal was tabled instead of being outright defeated suggests some agree with Detroit’s idea. The NFL will have another round of owners’ meetings in May.
