| LudicrousSpeed said: I am all for expanding the playoffs. |
I'll take these in turn then.
1. Make the #1 seed worth more, it gets the only bye week.
I'd personally rather stick with two teams getting bye weeks, especially since the #1 seed is so often decided by tiebreakers.
2. One more wild card opens up lots of interesting possibilities.
...such as...what? A mediocre team getting pounded into the ground by the two seed? Gee, sign me up.
3. It's just more good football. Nothing wrong with more good football.
I'd argue, most of the time, it won't be good football. It'll be a team like the Bills or the Dolphins from last year getting beat down by a two seed.
NFL seasons are already so short and go by so fast. It's not like the NBA or NHL where pretty much half the league makes it after 82 game looooong seasons. One early injury or bad call can mean a loss in the NFL and that one loss could be the difference in winning your division and making the playoffs, or not winning it and not getting a wild card.
...by the same token, this argument can be used the exact opposite way. The 2 seed might get a player injured or have a bad call in the additional game they're forced to play now and lose to an undeserving team as a result. Injuries happen, bad calls happen. The way to make them an even bigger deal than they were before is to give them another game to happen in.
I don't buy into the idea that division winners should meet certain criteria outside of winning the division to qualify either. Not all divisions are created equal. Look at the gutter trash of division opponents New England has had most of recent history. Or the Colts now. Compare that to what the NFC West was 2-3 years ago. Those teams beat the hell out of each other and while the 49ers and Seahawks were good enough to go outside the division and win enough games to get 11-12 wins a year, what if there was a 7 or 8 win team winning that tough division? They get left out because some 9 or 10 win team who has a last place schedule won more games? Nah.
...this is exactly why I would say division winners should meet criteria outside of winning the division. The NFC South was a total dumpster fire of a division last year. No one from that division was a playoff quality team. The mere fact that all anyone in that division had to do was be the best out of an awful group should say more than enough about things. I suppose there's a chance of a really strong division just beating up on each other to the point where no one can make the playoffs without division winning rules, but honestly, I don't think I've ever seen that happen. We have seen a number of awful teams that shouldn't have made the playoffs make the playoffs. Until the former becomes a reality, I don't think it's worth worrying about.
