And it wasn't that close.  

The NFL needs to revisit playoff formatting.    That Tampa team was not playoff worthy.

8 hours ago, The Raven said:

And it wasn't that close.  

The NFL needs to revisit playoff formatting.    That Tampa team was not playoff worthy.

They didn’t play anything like a 4 seed, that’s for sure. 

9 hours ago, The Raven said:

And it wasn't that close.  

The NFL needs to revisit playoff formatting.    That Tampa team was not playoff worthy.

I suppose if you seeded teams based on record, that made the playoffs, it would have looked like this:

1. Philly
2. SF
3. Minnesota
4. Dallas
5. New York
6. Seattle
7. Tampa Bay

I've never understood why the division champ should automatically get a home playoff game.

3 hours ago, bugatti said:

I suppose if you seeded teams based on record, that made the playoffs, it would have looked like this:

1. Philly
2. SF
3. Minnesota
4. Dallas
5. New York
6. Seattle
7. Tampa Bay

I've never understood why the division champ should automatically get a home playoff game.

I’m fine with division champs getting a home game. If you play in one of the toughest divisions and have to play your division teams twice. You may end up losing more games, but I would say they deserve that home playoff game more than a team that may have racked up a lot of wins against an easier schedule but couldn’t even win their division. 

 

 

I think playoff seeding can remain as is but if a division winner has a worse record than the wild card team they are playing, the wild card winner gets to host.

I think the NBA has this system but its rarely been used.

15 hours ago, The Raven said:

 That Tampa team was not playoff worthy.

Why? 

They won their division, what else would you have a team do to be Playoff Worthy?

14 minutes ago, Jumper_Dad said:

Why? 

They won their division, what else would you have a team do to be Playoff Worthy?

That's my point.  The NFL needs to not base it off division championships.  Dispense with divisions.  Play a season.  Top 7 teams make the playoffs.  If you don't have 7 teams over .500 in the conference, and additional team gets a bye in round one.

20 minutes ago, The Raven said:

That's my point.  The NFL needs to not base it off division championships.  Dispense with divisions.  Play a season.  Top 7 teams make the playoffs.  If you don't have 7 teams over .500 in the conference, and additional team gets a bye in round one.

That ain't happening because of television.

41 minutes ago, The Raven said:

That's my point.  The NFL needs to not base it off division championships.  Dispense with divisions.  Play a season.  Top 7 teams make the playoffs.  If you don't have 7 teams over .500 in the conference, and additional team gets a bye in round one.

Why don't we just form a committee and they can determine the 7 "best" teams?  Or maybe have a computer determine them?  Or how about we let sports writers choose?  Heck, why not let the coaches vote?

In all honesty, having division winners and additional wild-card teams is the best way to go, unless you're going to eliminate cross-conference games.  Then, you could just play everyone in your conference and the schedule would pretty much be equal across the board.  But, the way it is now, there's just too much fluctuation built in.  And that's on top of what the NFL already does to try and maintain parity to begin with.

Now, if you want to talk about seeding...that's a different topic.  

 

 

4 hours ago, The Raven said:

That's my point.  The NFL needs to not base it off division championships.  Dispense with divisions.  Play a season.  Top 7 teams make the playoffs.  If you don't have 7 teams over .500 in the conference, and additional team gets a bye in round one.

The scheduling imbalance between teams would be ridiculous if they were all just thrown together by conference. Currently each division's teams play a very comparable schedule making the win-loss records meaningful by division. 

Just because one team out of 14 "appears" to not deserve a playoff spot in no reason to rework the entire thing.

Additionally putting all teams in either the AFC or NFC conference without divisions would eliminate home and home rivalry games each year. Steelers, Ravens and Browns would only come to Cincinnati every other year.