With Baltimore playing such uninspiring football at the moment, it’s hard to find something Ravens-related to write about. Well that’s a lie, there’s plenty to discuss and critique, but every time I try and do so, I bum myself out. So I’m reworking and reposting a piece about how the incentive structure of the NFL playoff seeding system is totally misaligned. It’s a topic I fear will most likely, and sadly, remain evergreen, but here’s to hoping the league shakes things up eventually. You can check out the original post here.
There I was, sitting in my cold, dimly lit basement, licking my wounds after another soul-crushing Ravens implosion. I wasn’t shocked or surprised—how could I be when this is pretty much the expected result these days?—wasn’t even mad, really. Just utterly demoralized. It’s almost a ritual at this point. Once every couple of weeks, I get all excited for the Ravens to shut the door and secure a win, only for them to take a fresh, steaming dump all over my hopes and dreams, once again. The familiarity is even a tad comforting, I must admit.
Anyway, since I’m well practiced at dealing with these sorts of emotional nadirs this season, I knew a surefire remedy to lift my spirits: Schadenfreude—the universally beloved and time-honored tradition of finding delight in someone else’s misery. If there was any hope of salvaging the rest of my Sunday, I’d need to revel in the misfortunes of a group in even worse shape and with an even worse outlook than Ravens fans. And, within minutes, I was falling down an NFC South rabbit hole. Ah, yes, the lowly NFCS…exactly what the doctor ordered.
Now, I’m not exactly sure why this was news to me on Sunday. I typically have a not-great-but-fairly-decent understanding of all the happenings around the league. But this must’ve been hiding in plain sight. I mean, I had a general sense that as a whole they weren’t doing so hot, but I was unaware of just how dire it was:
And while proof of their collective incompetence was needed to snap my out of my gut-punch-induced funk, unfortunately, another thought immediately hijacked my brain, as a long running pet peeve of mine announced itself through the image above. Because I started looking ahead at each of their schedules, started doing a little amateur prognosticating about their final records, and I think it’s totally possible, maybe even probable, that we’ll soon see one my least favorite sights in the world—a below .500 playoff team.
True, while any team that makes the playoffs, regardless of their record, is by definition a playoff team, anyone operating in good faith will admit there’s a giant chasm between a team that stumbles into the postseason and a ‘playoff team.’ Even if it ends up being a hazy, hard-to-pin down definition for the latter, almost everyone has a good sense of what the term is referring to—and that merely winning half your games isn’t one of its underlying characteristics. And so unless someone in the NFCS wins out (or maybe goes 5-1 in the case of the Bucs), none of these teams come anywhere close to fitting that description. Even so, even though we all agree they clearly don’t meet the standards of a ‘playoff team,’ one of them will be hosting a playoff game this January, as unconscionable as that is.
When that happens, they’ll be the most recent example of a trend which occurs far too often for my taste. Just examining very recent history, we’ve seen the 2021 Steelers/Eagles and the 2020 WFT/Bears playing in January, yet none of them could reasonably be described as ‘playoff teams,’ either, since none possessed those quasi-indefinable qualities which separate playoff-worthy teams from the rest of the NFL. And falling short of that benchmark, they all should’ve been denied the chance—however slight—to compete for a championship. But because of the idiotic playoff selection rules the NFL employs, these middling-at-best teams did, in fact, get that chance. The same chance this totally forgettable Bucs team will, most likely, get in a few short weeks.
And that’s a travesty. Because with the NFL’s vaulted cultural status—and the even greater importance placed on the postseason—every moment of professional football, however fleeting, should really be imbued with the maximum amount of significance possible. But when the playoffs are populated with the wrong teams, large swaths of the regular season simply stop mattering, stop carrying the weight they should.
So, for those of us who rightly believe the playoffs should be a reward for regular season competency, what changes could we implement to improve the system? What criteria could we apply to the selection process to weed out such incompetence from post-season play?
Let’s first address the automatic playoff berth that’s awarded to division winners. I’ll wait to see how the season plays out before I pin this scarlet letter on the 2022 Bucs, so I'll use the 2020 NFCE, and their 7-9 champion, the WFT, as the example, instead. Now, I could’ve used the 2010 NFCW or 2011 AFCW, but I’ll stick with a more recent one, as it should be somewhat fresh in everyone's memory. And before we go any further, I just want to provide one quick data point as a reminder as to how putrid the 2020 NFC East actually was: With a couple weeks to go, there was a very real possibility that six wins was going to take the division:
No, your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you—had a couple of things broken differently, a 6-10 team could've hosted a playoff game. Just let that sink in for a minute, because if that doesn't convince you of the need for change, nothing will.
And what would've allowed a ten-loss team to host a playoff game? Well, it all goes back to the divisional realignment prior to the 2002 season, when the Texans were born and the league bumped up to an even 32 teams. And since 32 divides nicely into eight four-team groupings, ipso facto, you get our current divisional set-up. Now the set-up itself is fine, but they got a little too clever for their own good by granting the winner of each division a top-four seed. Though I’ll confess, I can’t really blame whoever dreamt up this staple, as I'm sure they assumed it would guarantee eight high-quality teams with strong regular season records to fill out the top of the playoff field.
But, unfortunately, in terms of evaluating a team's merits, simply winning a division means nothing. Because in reality, all it signifies is that one team was better than their three divisional opponents. If those opponents were garbage, then that isn't some huge accomplishment and certainly shouldn’t guarantee a trip to the postseason. But, with the current NFL divisional set-up, it not only cements them a top-four seed, it gives them a January home game to boot. And even if that division winner can only net something insane like, I don’t know, six wins, they still get to host that playoff game. This is absolutely infuriating, especially considering there are such easy fixes available.
Now, to reiterate, the realignment wasn’t the problem. To the contrary, smaller groupings have helped teams develop a stronger distaste for their divisional counterparts, leading to better, fiercer rivalries and generally more drama within the sport—all good things. And, when all four aren’t terrible, that feels like the right size. For example, each team in the NFCE detests the other three, so a fifth team would feel like a neutral-party hanger-on. And, in all honesty, I really love being part of the AFCN. They picked four cities with similar sensibilities in terms of sports fandom and general outlook, and they grouped them together. It's great. I’m sure other fans feel similarly about their own divisions. And in terms of the playoffs, when it works correctly and all eight divisions have at least one quality team, it's a pretty good system. It's only when there’s a slacker division that everything falls apart.
And it's in those instances, like with the 2020 WFT, this well-meaning design goes to hell. Because the WFT had no business in the playoffs, much less hosting the eventual champs. And critics of my plan can say, "Well they went toe-to-toe with Brady's Bucs, which shows they should've been there. And the Bronco and Seahawk teams alluded to earlier actually won, so this whole argument is bullshit."
But beating a good team at home shouldn't be the sole bar for a playoff team. Last year, the Jags beat the Bills at home. Does anyone think the Jags deserved a playoff spot? Or that the Bills didn’t? I doubt it. Any given Sunday applies to January as much as it does September, so it’s crucial to only give those extra Sundays to teams who’ve actually earned them.
So what’s the fix? How can we stop heaping mountains of undeserved rewards onto these lackluster divisional winners?
Well, we’ll kick it off with an either/or of two potential new rules for the division winners:
Rule Option #1: If no other changes are made, teams have to have at least 10 wins to host a playoff game. Let the Washington Heinikes and the Denver Tebows and the Seattle Beast Modes of the world in, but, if the WC team has ten wins, make them play on the road. The fact that such an easy, straightforward change hasn't happened yet honestly wrinkles my brain.
Rule Option #2: If you want to get a little spicier, ten wins (or some sort of combined-division winning %) becomes not only the threshold for a home game, but the threshold for an automatic bid too. If none of the four teams in a division can scrape together ten wins, why should that division have a playoff spot reserved for it? So, in short, 10 wins + a division crown guarantees a home playoff game. Anything else and they're thrown into the mix with the rest of the WC hopefuls, with the WC team with the best record then becoming the de facto four seed. No reason a 10-6 team should sit at home in January when a 6-10 team gets in because of some kooky alignment scheme cooked up two decades ago.
Now that first change helps prevent bad teams from being gifted a top-four seed, but that alone isn't good enough for two reasons. First, as we just saw in 2021, terrible squads can still get into the playoffs as WCs. And second, while it helps, it doesn't fully address the fact that quality teams can get boxed out from the field. Because it's not sufficient just to keep bad teams out, we need to also make sure all deserving teams get in. It’s a knotty proposition, for sure, but let’s see if we can’t tinker around with the rules concerning the number of playoff spots to accomplish this.
Let's start with the most obvious question: In its two years of existence, is there any evidence to suggest that the number of playoff teams should stay at 14? 2021 screams 'Not on your life!,' with those abysmal Steelers and Eagles teams each shitting their respective beds in blowout losses. But let's jump back to 2020, as it presents a much more interesting case. Because, while no one outside of Illinois would care if the 8-8 Bears had been excluded, the 11-5 Colts—as much as it pains me to say—had every right to be there. So, yes, three out of four seven seeds have been bad, but does anyone really want an 11-5 team to miss the cut? Not at all, and that adds an extra layer of complexity to an already difficult undertaking.
So what’s the right number, then? Should it be lower in an attempt to be discerning, but also potentially forcing quality teams to watch from home? Or should it be a higher number and risk watering down the competition some years? Is trying to include playoff-caliber teams like the 2020 Colts worth suffering through 2021 Pitt/Phila and 2020 Chi teams making it?
It’s a conundrum, no doubt, but there has to be a way to improve the current system, right? A way to let in the exact number so that the playoffs rewards teams for an excellent regular season while not tainting the field with sub-par competition. Because we know if we go back to six teams per conference, we’ll have to stomach the fact that good teams, like the 2021 Colts, will be watching from home some years. But if we keep it at seven, well, we already know that most years we'd be lucky to just get one dud and not two or three.
Now, you could drive yourself crazy trying to figure it out. You could pour over previous years' fields. Analyze trends in the league. Stress over the fact you can’t reasonably predict how the season will play out in 2023, much less 2033. But, you only need to look at these past two postseasons to realize there's no perfect answer—because there’s no perfect number. But what if it was never a number we were searching for in the first place. What if 'playoff entrants' isn't a constant, but a variable?
Because if the sole purpose of the playoffs is to reward teams who excelled in the regular season, why not just let in however many teams had an excellent regular season. Why can’t we simply get rid of the standard number and replace it with a playoff field that fluctuates year to year—where the number of entrants for the NFL playoffs equals the number of playoff-worthy teams that season produced.
As with the divisional change, it makes sense for the threshold to be ten wins (honestly, with a seventeen-game schedule, it should probably be eleven, but let’s compromise and go with ten). This could supersede the previous rule, so not only does ten wins make a team eligible for an automatic berth and a home game, but it’s the barrier for entry for a Wild Card spot, also. If only five teams in a conference can muster ten wins, then that conference will have a five-team playoff field that postseason. The four seed plays host to the five seed on WC weekend, and the other three teams get a bye. Should that same conference have eight ten-win teams the next year, the playoff field will swell to eight teams, with no byes on WC weekend. And if it has nine, the same elimination1 mechanisms that exist now kick in to whittle it down to eight teams.
So how might this play out in a real season? I’ll skip over 2021, because, again, 2020 is a better example of how cool this could be. For a refresher, take a quick peek at the end of season standings and the playoff bracket.
Using these standings, the NFC only fields five teams, because neither the WFT nor the Bears make the cut. So that makes the Bucs the four seed, playing host to the five-seed Rams as the only NFC game on WC weekend. The other three teams, the Packers, Saints and Seahawks all get a bye that week. Conversely, on the AFC side, the same seven teams would've made it as the same seeds, but the 10-6 Dolphins would've been included, too, as the eight seed. That means no byes on the AFC side, and eight deserving teams facing off on WC weekend.
Now I know some are going balk at this. I know some will think a change this drastic is patently ridiculous. But in my mind, it’s an unquestionable improvement over the current system—even if there are at least two credible objections I can see someone raising.
First, there’s the same drawback to this rule that there is to any new rule: Any time you put something in a rulebook, you automatically create edge cases. For instance, I could imagine scenarios where it would behoove an eleven-win team to throw the last game of the season against a nine-win team—effectively eliminating a potential bye for a team in front of them in the standings. But we already have teams who take the last game (or two!) off. And we just saw the absolutely infuriating example where a nine-win Eagles team had nothing to play for the last week of the season. So this doesn’t create a system with skewed incentives, rather it modifies a skewed-incentive-laden existing system by improving where those skewed incentives lie. Because if it’s between a system where an eleven-win team gets to employ a little gamesmanship vs a system where a nine-win team has their playoff seed locked up, I'm going with the former every time.
The second objection someone might raise is that teams like the 2020 Chiefs don’t see a benefit (outside of home field advantage) from being the best team in a stronger conference, while three teams in NFC do benefit from playing in a weaker conference. I would counter by saying that ‘better’ doesn't always mean ‘more fair.’ And for the fans, this is clearly better, because watching Chiefs/Dolphins in 2020 would’ve been a lot more enjoyable for the average viewer than watching Chiefs/Steelers in 2021—excluding the opinions of us Steeler-haters, of course. So, sure, they would've been ‘punished’ by playing an extra game during their better year, but they’d also be ‘rewarded’ with a bye the next season when they weren't quite as good. Like everything, it’ll have this sort of cyclical element to it, with ‘rewards’ and ‘punishments’ doled out somewhat capriciously. But why does that have to be a negative? Were the '20 WFT/Bears and '21 Steelers/Eagles not rewarded somewhat capriciously in their respective years? At least this way, the punishment/reward balance benefits the fans and scrappy, determined teams like the '20 Dolphins2.
And of course, whenever millions of dollars are flying around, we’d be remiss not to touch on the owners’ bank accounts. It's simple, this system is plainly better, which means the league on the whole is better. A high tide raises all ships, and all. Yes, last postseason they would've ‘lost’ the revenue of two playoff games. But, on the other hand, we wouldn’t have had to sit through the Bucs stomping of the Eagles or the Chiefs evisceration of the Steelers. I don't know what the ratings were—they were probably gangbusters—but if all people expect from most 2/7 future matchups is a shellacking, I can't imagine those numbers remaining sky high. Outside of the two markets involved, who wants to tune in for a foregone conclusion? To the contrary, in years when seven or eight teams have earned their way in, those games will take on a greater significance and probably garner huge ratings. So, with this implementation, they’re just exchanging a quick payoff for improved long-term fan engagement due to a better all-around product.
For the really sure-legged sailors out there, check out my companion piece for an even wilder idea to make up that lost revenue.
And fan engagement should be their ultimate metric of success, and what they should be most wary of jeopardizing. Because with the asinine set-up it currently employs, the NFL is at risk of squandering two of the best things it has going for it—scarcity and urgency. And if, over time, a decent portion of casual fans start to tune out on the watered-down regular season because it's all a crapshoot about who makes it to the postseason, anyway, the revenue from one or two extra playoff games won’t begin to cover those losses. But these suggested rule changes automatically reestablish the scarcity and the urgency that expansion—both the regular season and playoff varieties—undermines.
So let’s circle back to the lot that re-inflamed my disdain for all this nonsense: The totally unspectacular, run-of-the-mill ‘22 NFCS and their division leader, the 5-6 Bucs. With the current ruleset, the Bucs can basically continue to fail forward, concentrating their efforts almost exclusively on intra-divisional games, figuring there’s an automatic bid and a home playoff game basically reserved for them, at this point. And that outlook, I would bet, is pretty much the opposite of what a casual fan wants from late-season matchups involving potential playoff teams. Now, if the league were to implement what I’ve suggested, the Bucs would still have to hustle their asses off to get to ten (or eleven!) wins. And if they can't: tough titties—single-digit-win teams have no business being in the fucking playoffs, anyways.
Ideally, I’d really love a way to include all nine, but I just don’t see any realistic way to make that work…
And, of course, this whole argument could be turned on its head depending on your view of the ‘rest vs. rust’ debate—but I'll leave that tabled for the time being.