NFL changing playoff format
So 14/32 teams will make the playoffs... 43% of teams?!?
nfl doing everything they can to get the cowboys in the playoffs
...but 43% is what it was back when it was a 28 team league and 12 teams made it.
Look, and this isn't addressed specifically to you but hear me out...
I am typically against radical change with anything, particularly when looking to fix something that isn't broken with a radical change or idea. That said, aside from the math equations being favorable (12 divided by 28 = 42.9%, and 14/32 = 43.8%), there are a couple of other fundamental aspects that became broken with the NFL's playoff system in 2002, essentially as an unintended consequence of going from 3 divisions to 4 divisions per conference:
#1 - the league diluted the pool of teams that are given automatic playoff berths via winning their division. It is much harder to win a 5 team division than it is to win a 4 team division, and the odds of the winner of one of those three divisions being 10-6 or higher is monumentally stronger. I don't have the time to look this up again, but years ago I did the research, and there were literally only like 1 or 2 division winners that had less than 10 wins from 1990 (the advent of the 12 team playoff format) to 2001 (the year prior to realignment).
Since then, after moving to the four division per conference format, having a 9-7/8-8 division winner is common place, as is having a 9-7/10-6 non-division winner being left out of the playoffs altogether. And to top it off, and admittedly I need to go do the research on this, but I would bet that it has happened more times than not that even the #7 team in the conference has had a better or near identical record than division winner #4 since 2002.
#2 - as a result of the #1, this also increased tremendously the odds that the worst division winner will almost always have a weaker record than the best wild card team. It can now be stated as fact, based on 18 years of data we now have, that we will be seeing 11-5 or better wild card teams having to travel to face an 9-7 or worse division winner on a pretty normal basis. I think this is broken.
The goal of a football playoff, and almost any sports playoff in general, is to give the best teams the most easiest path possible to getting to the championship game. An 11-5 team, by definition is a better team than an 8-8/7-9 team, if we used the metric designed to figure out the playoff teams as a whole: overall record. In practice, that should mean that you want that team with a superior record to have the best odds to win, and to me, that should mean homefield advantage, especially due to the issue described in #1 of the diluted division winner pool.
I am okay with them seeding the teams the same as they do now, but I still think superior record should get you homefield. Getting an automatic playoff berth for winning a terrible division is enough of a reward. Too much emphasis is being placed on winning these watered down 4-team divisions in this format, in my opinion of course.
...so, with all that said, I am good with moving to 14 teams. First of all, it does nothing but increase our team's chances of postseason play, and secondly, it helps curtail what has become an antiquated playoff system to some degree.
I mean think about it - even the names of the rounds don't even make sense anymore. There was a time, pre-1990, when only 10 teams made the playoffs, where the phrase "Wild Card Weekend" actually meant
Wild Card Weekend. I.E. The only teams that played the first weekend were the two wild card teams from each conference, while the three division winners each had bye weeks. What else was cool about this is that even as a Wild Card team, you had a chance to host a round 1 playoff game; I always thought that was neat back in the day.
Anyway...so after you got past the Wild Card Weekend round, you made it to the Divisional Round. This round was named as such because literally, this was the weekend where ALL of the division winners played, and they had the one wild card winner from each conference thrown into the mix as the aptly named "wild cards" of the group playing on Divisional Weekend with the division winners.
So even the mere name of each round part of it is antiquated and outdated.
I know many are reluctant to embrace change and I am one of those people, but I really think the NFL is doing the right thing here.
Now, as for the 17-game schedule that's proposed - get off my lawn!
I don't like it either but watch how many of y'all are silent about it if the post-Brees Saints sneak in as a 9-7 7th seed in a few years.
The funny part about this is that the Saints were the first NFC team to benefit from the move from 5 playoff teams to 6 playoffs teams back in 1990, making it into the playoffs with an 8-8 record.
(Edit: fun note - if we had 14 teams back in 2002 when the league realigned and got to 32 teams, the Saints would have been the first benefactor of that change and made the playoffs that year also).