Pushback on reseeding NFL playoffs? Why proposal to change format makes sense for league

The NFL will consider playoff reseeding next week, but don’t expect a change for 2025

By Jonathan Jones

If Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong were here today, perhaps they would sing “They All Laughed” at the Detroit Lions when they said the NFL playoffs should be reseeded.

Eventually, the Lions and other smart people around the NFL will have the last laugh when the league changes its playoff seeding format. It just may not be next week.

The playoff reseeding proposal, first reported as expected by CBS Sports in January, will again be subject to discussion at next week’s league meetings in Minnesota. A vote on the “radical” proposal is possible, but multiple sources indicate it’s unlikely the proposal would have the requisite votes to pass for the upcoming 2025 season.

That’s a shame, but not altogether unexpected for a league unaccustomed to radical change.

The proposal is a basic one: Teams would be seeded in the playoffs based on their winning percentage. Winning your division still matters because it guarantees a team a spot in the playoffs; it just doesn’t guarantee a team a home playoff game.

Oftentimes if a proposal has little chance of passing, the league won’t even take a vote. That might be what happens next week.

I have been surprised by how many of my peers in the media — smart people, I want to add — are against this idea. A change in playoff seeding would enhance regular-season games, make for more competitive games down the stretch and, most importantly for those with decision-making powers, bring more money to the game.

Before I go any further, I must address the tired “winning your division should matter” cliché. In every offseason program at all 32 teams for as long as time has existed, pro football coaches have laid out their plans that include winning the division. It means there was a successful season, and it means you’re playing in front of your home crowd in January.

Divisional games mattering less

That’s great. You used to be able to buy a house if you worked really hard at your full-time job, too.

The NFL has been telling you for years that divisional football actually matters less than ever before. Before 2020, if a team won its division, it had a 1-in-2 chance of receiving a first-round playoff bye. Now it has a 1-in-4 chance.

Also before that season, if a team did not win its division, it had a 1-in-6 chance of making the playoffs as a wild card team. Today, that team has a 1-in-4 chance of playing in the postseason.

And since the addition of the 17th game in the 2021 season, the division games quite literally matter less. Divisional games made up 37.5 percent of the schedule in the 16-game format, and they now make up 35.3 percent of games with 17 games.

When the league goes to 18 games, if the schedule formula doesn’t have a divisional game as the extra game, divisional matchups will account for just a third of the season.

The 18th game is what is important here. The more games are added, the less important divisional games are, yes. But there also may simply be more bad games on the schedule. A dilution of the most bankable television property in our great nation is not a good thing.

Teams get an extra game to stink and play out the string. Perhaps there are years where the divisions are decided early (look at how the Bills practically wrapped up the AFC East by Thanksgiving last year) and are locked into their seed because they can’t catch the top team in their conference.

Filtering out for injuries, here is a sampling of some of the quarterbacks who played legitimate minutes in Week 18 last year: Jimmy Garoppolo, Trey Lance, Joe Milton Jr., Davis Mills, Mitchell Trubisky, Marcus Mariota, Carson Wentz and Mike White.

The above cases involved teams whose playoff position couldn’t be changed or teams who were out of the playoff picture entirely. I don’t think that gets any better when another week of games is added to the schedule under the current rules.

Another pet peeve of mine in this conversation is when people reimagine what the playoffs would have been last year under these rules. This team would have played that team under these rules. It’s the same maddening ex post facto analysis we have seen when presidential candidates win the popular vote but lose the electoral college. Matthew Stafford would have played in Week 18 if he knew the outcome would decide the location of a playoff game, similar to how a politician would spend more time in California or Texas if the popular vote was the entire point.

Goodell invested in playoff change

Much like how Roger Goodell has been publicly discussing 18 games for more than a year, the league wants owners to start warming to the idea of a playoff change in coming years.

“I thought it is a very healthy proposal and a very healthy point that we need to evaluate and continue to look at,” Goodell said last month when I asked him about this very proposal. “There was some great data to show that we should really look at some form or version of this.

“… But I think the reality is it was very healthy and I think there will be more discussion of it. As we look at the season structure, there will probably be a lot of discussion in that context also as we do that. But I do think it’s that constant work to be more competitive and find new ways to create interest in the game.”

Why is Goodell so interested in the playoff change? Or should I say, why is the commissioner of a league whose value has quadrupled over the last quarter-century so invested in this?

If you believe changing the seeding will make for more competitive games, then you accept the NFL will make more money. The throwaway games in the final couple weeks of the season suddenly can sell better. Ticket prices don’t crater. Advertisers want to spend money on those games because there will be more viewers. You get it?

The math has been changing on all of this for years. But one piece of arithmetic stays the same. Each year a team has a 1-in-4 chance of getting a home playoff game, by virtue of being in a four-team division. With this playoff seeding change, every team will still enter the year with a 1-in-4 chance of hosting a playoff game, given that there are four spots for the 16 conference teams.

One legitimate question that would need answering is how the reseeding impacts the next season’s schedule. Should a division winner who played a road playoff game get the classic division winner’s schedule the following year? I’m not sure, but here’s a free idea.

The reseeding takes place when the league goes to 18 games in the coming years. Have the scheduling formula tied to the entire regular season and postseason, meaning several teams won’t know all their opponents for next year until the Super Bowl champion has been crowned. The following day, which will be Presidents Day, as one team celebrates being world champs, the other 31 teams get to stare at their finalized slate of opponents for next year.

After all, it’s a better way to fill the calendar than a draft lottery.