Please Don't Do It

Divisions haven't mattered in the NBA for quite a while.  They still nominally exist, but I'm not really sure why.  Maybe for scheduling purposes?  Because the NBA divisions are essentially irrelevant.  Winning your division doesn't even guarantee you a playoff spot.  They just seed it 1-10 in the conference, regardless of division.  The Magic won the Southeast Division this season, yet still had to play in the Play-In Tournament.

At least the NBA keeps it divided by conferences.  The WNBA might as well be European soccer with a single, league-wide table.  For the last several years, the WNBA Playoffs have disregarded the conferences entirely and simply seeded the teams by their overall record.  I don't even think the WNBA considers the conferences when making the schedule.  The Commissioner's Cup is the only place where they come into play.

Why am I bringing this up?  Because the NFL owners are set to vote on a proposal that would drastically change the playoff structure.  The proposal, which was brought forward by the Lions, wouldn't guarantee the four division winners the top four seeds in each conference.  Instead, the playoffs would be seeded based on record.

I have no idea if this proposal has enough support to pass, but I sure hope it doesn't!  Because it's a terrible idea!  Passing it would essentially be telling teams the same thing that the NBA tells its teams.  Winning the division doesn't matter.  Except in football, it does.

In the NBA and WNBA, teams play relatively balanced schedules.  The number of games they play against certain opponents may vary, but they play everyone else in the league at least twice every season.  So, there are enough common-ish games to justify it.  In the NFL, that's not the case.  You only play 14 of the other 31 teams.  The only teams that are guaranteed to have a comparable schedule to yours are the other three in your division (who you'll play twice each).  As a result, that's the only apples-to-apples comparison you can make.

Yes, there's always going to be a "bad" division.  That's the case every year.  And we've even seen some teams that are below .500 host playoff games as division champions.  But is that their fault?  Why should they be penalized for playing in a bad division?  They were still the best team in their division.

Also, be careful with what you wish for.  Because things in the NFL are always cyclical.  The NFC South and AFC South might be the weaker divisions right now, but it wasn't too long ago when Washington won the NFC East at 7-9.  Likewise, the AFC West and NFC North are extremely strong right now, but there's no guarantee that will continue.  And, you can bet that when things do cycle around, they'll want that division champion home game regardless of what their record is.

This isn't the first time this has been proposed.  It seems to come up every few years where somebody thinks it's unfair that a wild card team with a better record has to go on the road in the playoffs.  But is that any more fair than telling a division champion that their only reward for winning their division is a guaranteed playoff berth?  They did something that the wild card team didn't.  Win their division. 

If the wild card team really is better, going on the road shouldn't be a problem.  The Steelers and Packers have both won Super Bowls as the 6-seed playing nothing but road games during the playoffs.  Likewise, we've seen wild card teams with a much better record than their opponent lose in the Wild Card round.  Would things have been different if they were playing at home?  Maybe.  But they had their chance to earn a playoff home game during a 17-game regular season and didn't do it.  That's not their opponent's fault.

It's easy to see where this sudden push to change the playoff format came from.  Last season's Week 18 game between the Lions and Vikings.  The winner would be the 1-seed.  The loser would be the 5-seed.  The 15-2 Lions got the 1-seed.  The 14-3 Vikings ended up as the 5-seed and had to go on the road in the playoffs despite having the fourth-best record in the NFL.

Situations like what happened with Detroit and Minnesota are incredibly rare.  In fact, that game was the first time in NFL history that two 14-win teams were facing each other in the regular season.  So, it's not like this is something that happens every year.  The 5-seed does often have a better record than the 4-seed, but we're usually talking about 11-6 vs. 10-7 here, which isn't that great a disparity.

On the surface, what's interesting here is that the proposal came from Detroit, not Minnesota.  But, if you think about it, it probably shouldn't be that surprising that it came from the 1-seed.  Because if the 2- and 3-seeds win on Wild Card Weekend, who does the 1-seed play?  The 4-5 winner!  So, they want to face the "weaker" 10-7 team.  Not the 12-5 team that ended up as a wild card because they play in the good division.  (Although, it's not like facing Washington last year really worked out for the Lions, now did it?)

They did put in a provision that would still "protect" division winners if this format change does get adopted.  They'd add a tiebreaker that a division title automatically gives you the higher seed over somebody with the same record, even if they beat you head-to-head.  That's not enough to sway me, though.  Because the proposal is stupid.  It's an unnecessary overreaction to an extraordinary situation that is unlikely to happen again.

Winning your division is incredibly hard.  It's an achievement that should be rewarded.  Not just with a playoff berth.  With at least one home playoff game.  Every team in the league goes into the season knowing they have (theoretically, at least) a 25 percent chance of that.  They all know what they have to do.  If you want to play at home in January, win your division.  It's really that simple.