How a 16-Team NFL Playoff Could Work
The NFL had a long-established playoff format from 2002-2019 of eight division winners with the top two division winners of each conference earning a bye week as well as four wild card teams evening out the playoffs at 12 teams in total. Overall, the 12-team playoff dates back all the way to 1990 since there were six division winners and six wild card teams, establishing almost three decades of 12 playoff teams. In 2020, the expansion of a 14-team playoff shook up the NFL. Now, only the top-seeded team in each conference gets a bye week and the league is back to including six wild card teams. The NFL Playoffs are always great, but they’d be even greater with eight teams per conference making it.
How It Would Work
It would make the scheduling even more complicated by adding another week to the cumulative NFL season, but that’s what would work best. The Super Wild Card Weekend would now encompass all non-division winners playing each other on Saturday and Sunday. The fifth seed would play the eighth seed while the sixth would play the seventh, guaranteeing at least one home playoff game for the top two teams that didn’t win their division. All division winners would get a bye for Super Wild Card Weekend—despite how much people might hate a 7-10 team getting an advantage over a 14-3 team—while the top two teams in each conference would get an additional bye until the divisional round. After all the wild card teams play each other, the third seed would play the lowest seed that won while the fourth seed would play the highest seed that won. For example using this season’s standings, the fifth-seeded Vikings would play the eighth-seeded Seahawks while the sixth-seeded Commanders would play the seventh-seeded Packers, and if the Vikings and Packers both won, then the third-seeded Buccaneers would play the Packers while the fourth-seeded Rams would play the Vikings. This next round would be called the AFC and NFC Quarterfinals while the teams that advance would play the two top teams in the divisional round following the seeding rules that existed from 2002-2019. To recap, it rewards the top two teams of each conference by letting them get a bye week until the divisional round while also keeping the incentive of winning the division by giving all division winners a week off for wild card week.
Expansion Would Make the Two Seed Prestigious Again
Historically, the top two division winners in the AFC and NFC have both had a bye week and since taking away the bye, it has devalued the two seed. 2022 was the first season ever that two teams with at least 13 wins from the same conference didn’t earn a bye week and 2024 will be the first season that two 14-win teams from the same conference won’t earn a bye week with the 14-3 Vikings and Eagles. In fact, only a small number of 13-win teams in NFL history haven’t earned a first-round bye, including only three before the playoff expansion. The 1999 Titans, finishing below the 14-2 Jaguars in the then-AFC Central division, were the only 13-3 team before the 2002 division realignment that had to play in the Wild Card round. Unfortunately for Drew Brees, the only other 13-win teams without a first-round bye week before the playoff expansion were teams that he was quarterbacking; the 2011 and 2019 Saints. Though only three 13-win teams didn’t clinch a bye week before the seven-team playoff, there will be eight more 13-plus-win teams to play in the opening round; the 2020 Bills, 2021 Buccaneers, 2022 Bills, 2022 49ers, 2022 Vikings, 2024 Bills, 2024 Eagles and the 2024 Vikings.
A History of Hypothetical Eight Seeds
The main argument against playoff expansion has always been that worse teams will make the playoffs and that that’s bad for the league. However, that simply is not true when looking at the recent history of the NFL. Since 1990, there would have been a total of 12 teams that had a losing record make it into the playoffs as the hypothetical eighth seed, with the worst team’s record being 6-10, held by the 1990 Vikings and 1992 Rams. Meanwhile, there would have been 28 teams during the same time frame with winning records to make it into the playoffs as the hypothetical eighth seed with three teams being 10-6—the 1991 Eagles, 2010 New York Giants, and 2020 Dolphins—as well as this year’s Seahawks at 10-7. To make it as fair as possible, the seasons included could be narrowed down to 2002 since that’s when the league expanded to 32 teams compared to 28 in 1990. Since 2002, it narrows the field for the eight-seed with 24 teams with a winning record clinching the hypothetical eight-seed and only six teams with a losing record doing the same. Also, it should be mentioned that there have been four division winners with a losing record in the same time frame, so there would have been two more eight seeds with a losing record than division winners since 2002.
