NFL owners to discuss new playoff format, major changes to seeding

NFL owners are set to discuss a new playoff format and major changes to seeding, according to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler. It’s set to be the same qualification process and same amount of teams, but seeds will be tweaked if passed.

Basically, division winners won’t automatically be the top four seeds and have home games just because they won their division. It’ll strictly be by record for all seven seeds.

However, this change for the playoffs is not expected to be made this season. Fowler reported this is more of a long term play.

“NFL owners will discuss a proposal from the Detroit Lions to change the playoff format, where it would be about record, primarily, as opposed to division winners,” Fowler said on SportsCenter. “The division winners now get the top four seeds. So the league has some support on this. It’s considered a long shot to pass, because owners would need to vote at least 24 to eight to get this passed. I don’t know if enough teams can wrap their head around that. They still cling to the fact that division winners are really important, and they believe that that’s sacred. But I think the league will try to change this.” 

Right now, the NFL schedule has 17 games but the league wants to make the playoff change, especially when they inevitably add an 18th game. They want the late season games to matter.

“This is more of a long term play, because right now you have a 17 game schedule, they’re going to eventually probably go to 18 games,” Fowler said. “The league wants to eliminate those meaningless games in those final weeks where teams may be locked into a two seed and rest their starters. They want more late season impact. That’s what the Lions want. That’s why they proposed this. So we’ll see if it gets enough traction. Probably won’t pass this time, but eventually I can see it passing if it doesn’t next week.”

If you look at last year’s NFL standings, both the NFC and AFC had instances where a wild card team had a better record than a division winner. In the AFC, the Los Angeles Chargers were 11-6 and had a better record than the No. 4 seed Houston Texans (10-7), so those two would’ve flipped under this format.

In the NFC, it was more noticeable this past season. The Lions and Eagles (15-2 and 14-3 respectively) were the top two seeds. But the Bucs and Rams won their divisions at 10-7 and were No. 3 and 4 in the NFC while all three wild card teams had a better record.

The NFL saw the Vikings go 14-3 and be the No. 5 seed in the NFC playoffs. Meanwhile, the Commanders and Packers were 12-5 and 11-6 and were the bottom two seeds.

This change is not official and it still has to be voted on. But for now, the NFL is certainly trying to push this particular change to the playoffs.