Lions propose change in the way the playoffs are seeded
Two questions for you...
1. If Divisions dont matter why should Conferences matter?
2. If there are 12 NFC teams with better records why should the AFC still get 8 teams instead of just 4 in the playoffs?
There’s a lot of vestiges from old, antiquated traditions, one of them is indeed Conferences, initially representing an acknowledgement that we were seeing two leagues merge together. The Super Bowl itself is basically an old acknowledgement of a two league system rivalry culminating with a clash for all the marbles at the end. That’s something I can live with; it's tradition.
But so much has changed over time with the dynamics of the league, parity, the number of divisions, number of playoff participants, etc.
There was a time where we only had three divisions, and it was virtually guaranteed and I believe all but one year that every single division winner in the league had at least 10 wins (I believe one of the mid to late 90s AFC Central winners won it at 9-7 IIRC; it sticks out in my memory because of how odd it was).
When we used to have a 5 team playoff, "Wild card weekend" actually meant WILDCARD Weekend. Those 4 teams (two in each conference) teams faced off with one another for the right to advance to the next round to join the 3 division winners in each conference, who all had great records and a bye.
Then when we introduced a 6 team playoff, the worst division winner got relegated to the wild card round to host the worst wild card team (us being the first NFC team to do so, when we faced the Bears in 1990). And the best wild card winner hosted the second best wild card winner, which to me was always kind of cool, that you could be a wild card team yet still host a playoff game.
Fast forward to now though, we now have four divisions, which significantly watered down the field and made it way more likely that we'd consistently see mediocre, 8 to 9 win teams winning divisions, but not only that, it made it extremely more likely that the best non-division winner would virtually always be a team with an impressive 11+ win record.
I think the definition of division winner has significantly lost value from what its initial intent was. Back in the day, winning your division was a much more impressive feat and you were almost assured to be a really strong 11+ win team, but not anymore.
What is the arbitrary reason for that?
Because it would be an acknowledgement of the victory of winning their grouping within the conference. That to me should be where the advantages/perks end. You won your grouping, you got your automatic bid, now you are competing for the conference championship ranked on how good your overall record is compared to the rest of the conference.