Football: The NFL Needs a Seeded Playoff

At first I was tolerant of the 7-9 Seahawks making the playoffs but unhappy about their hosting a playoff game.  Over the last few days I've given it some thought and I'm no longer cool with this.  So what if they won their division?  The NFC West was 25-39 as a division, -322 in division point differential for all 4 teams across 16 games, and no team in the division finished with a positive point differential.  This has to rank among the worst performances by a division in history.

The NFL keeps a ranking of the 32 NFL teams that employs the same tiebreaking procedures that are used for wild card tiebreakers.  An examination of this list shows that 6!! teams that did not make the 12 team playoff are ranked higher than the Seahawks.

The status quo has the top 6 teams from each conference making the playoffs with the 4 division winners from each conference seeded #1-4 within their conference's playoffs.  Two at-large teams are added in as wild-cards and are seeded #5 & 6.  The Seahawks were able to get in ahead of a superior team and take a higher seed (playoff advantage) simply by winning a weak division.  That's ludicrous!  This system also allows for an elite team to be bumped to a low seed (playoff disadvantage) if they happen to play in a division with another elite team.  This year the 12-4 Ravens are a 5 seed in their conference while two 10-6 teams are seeded higher and have an advantage over them as a result.  That's just wrong.

Gregg Easterbrook, writer of the weekly Tuesday Morning Quarterback (a must-read for me every week), has argued for a seeded playoff system in which conference affiliations are ignored when setting up the brackets.  Here are the impacts that it would have:

• The top 12 ranked teams get in, the rest are out.  For this year's playoffs that means that the New York Giants (10-6) are in the postseason and the Seattle Seahawks (7-9) are out.
• Teams #1 and #2 would have first round byes and home-field advantage up until the Super Bowl (may as well leave it on a neutral, predetermined field).  This would have no impact on this year's playoffs as the #1 New England Patriots (14-2) and #2 Atlanta Falcons (13-3) already have home-field advantage and a first round bye.
• Teams #3 and 4 would have first-round byes.  Currently the #5 Chicago Bears (11-5) have a first round bye while the #3 Baltimore Ravens (12-4) do not and in fact have to travel for a road playoff game.  This is due to them losing their division tie-breaker with the the #4 Steelers (12-4).  In a seeded system, both the #3 Ravens and #4 Steelers would have a first round bye.
• Teams #5-8 would host opening round games.  This year these would be the #5 Chicago Bears (11-5), #6 New Orleans Saints (11-5), #7 New York Jets (11-5), and #8 Green Bay Packers (10-6).  Green Bay gets the home game over the other 10-6 teams off the NFL tiebreakers.
•  Teams #9-12 would have road opening round games.  This year these would be the #9 Indianapolis Colts (10-6), #10 Kansas City Chiefs (10-6), #11 New York Giants (10-6), and #12 Philadelphia Eagles.
• Seeds would not be switched around each round to protect the top teams like in the current system.  Additionally, home-field is determined by the better seed in the matchup.

This setup leaves out only 1 team that has a legitimate claim to being a playoff contender and that's the #13 Tampa Bay Buccaneers (10-6).  They lose out on a lot of tiebreakers but there's really no team ahead of them that can be argued does not deserve a spot in the playoffs.  This at least puts them in a better situation than having a team with 3 fewer wins in the playoffs and hosting a game.  All in all, I think this setup is an improvement.

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Exercise Journal
Today - Cardio: +1
January Total: +3
Difference from goal: -3

One of these days I'll have some more time to try to catch up to my goal for the month.