Are people really for expanding playoff field?

[Lestat]

this is the only way to legitimately expand the season. the players will never agree to a 18 or 20 game season. people have said since it was brought up. "why not just expand the playoffs instead of the regular season since that is when the fans focus the most on football."

[Fedaykin]

I wouldn't mind adding 2 more to eliminate the first round bye.

[HAT]

Why any fan would be against this is beyond me. Bye week is stupid & the NFL revolves around the numbers 4/8/16......4 division winners and 4 wildcards per conference.

4 games Saturday & 4 games Sunday....12-3-6-9 pm on FOX, CBS, NBC & ESPN.

It would be by far the best weekend of the NFL calendar year fanwise.

[No1BroncoFan]

Piss on all that. Just send the six from each conference with the best records. No more 7-9 division winners ****ting on the playoffs (Seattle). Top 12 go, everybody else stays home!

[Hamrob]

I like the idea of adding 2 more teams and eliminating the bye all together. If you have the best record in the NFL...then you shouldn't need an additonal advantage. it also accomplished their desire to make more $$$...so be it.

[errand]

Originally Posted by maher_tyler

Contradicts anything he has ever said about player safety.

so if he said they were gonna reduce the number of games you'd be for that? Personally I think expanding the number of games is OK....

I would go to an 18 game schedule...eliminating two preseason games. You would play 6 games in your division (home and away)...and then one game vs. every team in your conference's other divisions (6 home, 6 away) rotating home and away every other year

this would eliminate a lot of the stupid tie breaker scenarios as there will be a head to head game no matter which teams are tied...the top 6 teams make the playoffs, keep the seeding like it is.

The Super Bowl would go back to the only way AFC vs. NFC happens outside of preseason.

a typical season could look like this -

HOME
Raiders
Chargers
Chiefs
Steelers
Browns
Bills
Jets
Texans
Colts

AWAY
Raiders
Chargers
Chiefs
Ravens
Bengals
Patriots
Dolphins
Titans
Jaguars

..and the season isn't any longer, but you don't feel like you wasted your money watching the last two preseason games as ticket holders would get to see two more regular season games.

[ol#7]

Originally Posted by HAT

Why any fan would be against this is beyond me. Bye week is stupid & the NFL revolves around the numbers 4/8/16......4 division winners and 4 wildcards per conference.

4 games Saturday & 4 games Sunday....12-3-6-9 pm on FOX, CBS, NBC & ESPN.

It would be by far the best weekend of the NFL calendar year fanwise.

Rep. This Exactly this.

I am really suprised so many don't see it this way, I think it is just a Goodell reflex. Watching the Broncos go 10-6 in 81, 11-5 in 85 and 9-7 2006 and stay home sucked. I know the field was smaller in 81/85 06? and not the current 12 but the same argument exists, just look at the 11-5 Patriots staying home as proof. Your much more likely to get a ****ty division winner than extra wild card team with a bad record with the 4 division setup. It almost guarantees it.

[Beantown Bronco]

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

Yeah you could maybe add days. But then it adds other headaches. When the season comes down to one game, you don't want a round 2 Saturday game with one team that played on Saturday vs one who played way late on Monday. So you'd almost have to set it up so the Monday winners played each other the following week. And that in itself could get tricky to juggle when you're dealing with 4 time zones.

Easily avoidable. Monday winners can't play the following Saturday. They don't have to play each other. They could easily face Sunday winners from the week before. They get a guaranteed Sunday slot the following week if they win. It's actually LESS of a disadvantage than the current system which forces Sunday first round winners to play again the next Saturday in a short week against teams that had a bye week and were at home resting for the last 2+ weeks with no travelling.

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

Plus I'm not sure two late games on Monday Night would bring the kind of ratings the NFL is accustomed to for playoff games.

Their ratings for those two slots are currently 0.0.

[rbackfactory80]

Lol

we get more games



Nobody wants to see an 8-8 Cincy team heading to Foxboro in January.

[BroncoBeavis]

Originally Posted by Beantown Bronco

Easily avoidable. Monday winners can't play the following Saturday. They don't have to play each other. They could easily face Sunday winners from the week before. They get a guaranteed Sunday slot the following week if they win. It's actually LESS of a disadvantage than the current system which forces Sunday first round winners to play again the next Saturday in a short week against teams that had a bye week and were at home resting for the last 2+ weeks with no travelling.

Some people see that bye cushion the top 2 seeds get as a feature, not a bug. And both those Monday games would be way later than either current Sunday game. Plus I don't think you'd have as much control as you think over who plays when the next weekend. At least not in the current top seed remaining style format.

[Fedaykin]

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

Some people see that bye cushion the top 2 seeds get as a feature, not a bug. And both those Monday games would be way later than either current Sunday game. Plus I don't think you'd have as much control as you think over who plays when the next weekend. At least not in the current top seed remaining style format.

The bye is way too much of a competitive advantage IMO -- especially because it helps the first two seeds a ton in the player health dept., which isn't a factor I like influencing the outcome of games.

[Beantown Bronco]

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

Some people see that bye cushion the top 2 seeds get as a feature, not a bug.

I'm simply rebutting your argument about the "short week" between a Monday night game and a Sat or Sunday game being some disadvantage.

It's no more of a disadvantage than one team getting a bye week and the other having an extra game 6 days before, which is the system we have now. It's not even close. The current system puts lower seeds at a bigger disadvantage.

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

And both those Monday games would be way later than either current Sunday game.

So. It's still more even than one team not playing at all.

I'm sure if you proposed the option to the lower ranked teams, ALL of them would sacrifice the one less day of prep if it meant they'd be going against a team that had to play that weekend too, instead of sitting home, resting up and getting healthy.

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

Plus I don't think you'd have as much control as you think over who plays when the next weekend. At least not in the current top seed remaining style format.

Why not? One Monday night game per conference. The winner goes on to face their next opponent on Sunday, period. They lose a whole ONE day. The Sat and Sun winners from the first weekend go on to play again the following Sat or Sun just as they do now. There's really no difference. It's just like the current system where Sunday winners sometimes play the following Saturday.

[Kaylore]

Originally Posted by HAT

Why any fan would be against this is beyond me. Bye week is stupid & the NFL revolves around the numbers 4/8/16......4 division winners and 4 wildcards per conference.

4 games Saturday & 4 games Sunday....12-3-6-9 pm on FOX, CBS, NBC & ESPN.

It would be by far the best weekend of the NFL calendar year fanwise.

It's hard to disagree with this. Letting four teams do nothing for a week is a waste of football. The only thing it is would water-down the "fighting for the top seed" thing but would put more emphasis on just winning your division since all division winners would have to play the first playoff week.

[Kaylore]

Originally Posted by Fedaykin

The bye is way too much of a competitive advantage IMO -- especially because it helps the first two seeds a ton in the player health dept., which isn't a factor I like influencing the outcome of games.

Being healthy is part of getting to the SB.

[BroncoBeavis]

Originally Posted by Beantown Bronco

Why not? One Monday night game per conference. The winner goes on to face their next opponent on Sunday, period. They lose a whole ONE day. The Sat and Sun winners from the first weekend go on to play again the following Sat or Sun just as they do now. There's really no difference. It's just like the current system where Sunday winners sometimes play the following Saturday.

That's a good way to put it, I hadn't thought of it in those terms.

But it doesn't resolve the seeding problem though. Depending on winners and losers, it could potentially give a rest advantage in week two to lower (worse) seeds vs higher surviving seeds.

So it seems like you'd be diminishing the importance of seeding even further. As Kaylore just said, the big focus would become winning your division. Which does nothing for the current 'cruise control' problem the NFL has over the last few weeks of the season (other than maybe make it worse.)

And I'd rather have two or three more weeks of a competitive regular season vs a few extra games for +- .500 teams one weekend.

It currently is how it should be.

[BroncoBeavis]

Originally Posted by rbackfactory80

Lol

we get more games



Nobody wants to see an 8-8 Cincy team heading to Foxboro in January.

I think as it stands today the current AFC 8 seed would be held by the Jets.

Yep.

[Beantown Bronco]

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

But it doesn't resolve the seeding problem though. Depending on winners and losers, it could potentially give a rest advantage in week two to lower (worse) seeds vs higher surviving seeds.

How about this? Give the 1 seed from each conference their choice of time slot. They can choose any of the time slots on any day from Saturday to Monday they want, assuming no conflicts with other events in their stadium. Then let the 2s choose from what's left and keep going on down until the worst seeded team is left with the last slot.

I think this could be very interesting and it would add yet another element of strategy for the coaches to consider.

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

So it seems like you'd be diminishing the importance of seeding even further. As Kaylore just said, the big focus would become winning your division. Which does nothing for the current 'cruise control' problem the NFL has over the last few weeks of the season (other than maybe make it worse.)

My proposal above solves that at least to some degree, don't you think? The ability to choose when you play could be huge.

[55CrushEm]

Originally Posted by ol#7

Rep. This Exactly this.

I am really suprised so many don't see it this way, I think it is just a Goodell reflex. Watching the Broncos go 10-6 in 81, 11-5 in 85 and 9-7 2006 and stay home sucked. I know the field was smaller in 81/85 06? and not the current 12 but the same argument exists, just look at the 11-5 Patriots staying home as proof. Your much more likely to get a ****ty division winner than extra wild card team with a bad record with the 4 division setup. It almost guarantees it.

Yep. Up until 1990, the playoff field was 5 teams per conference. All 3 division winners had byes, and the 2 wildcards played each other the first weekend.....for a true "wildcard" matchup. Then there were 4 teams for the divisional round, as is the case now.

In 1990, they added a 3rd wildcard, for a total of 6 playoff teams.....which meant 1 of the 3 division winners no longer had a bye, and only the top 2 (rather than all 3) had byes. Still, 4 teams remained for the divisional round.

Then in 2002, the re-alignment happened......we still have 6 teams....but 1 wildcard had to be eliminated in place of a 4th division winner.

I guess the league just figures we've been at 6 playoff teams for nearly a quarter century.......time to change things up (again).

I said before, I might consider adding ONE more, to make the field 7 teams. That way ONLY the 1-seed gets a bye. All the marbles, if you will.....they get the only bye and homefield throughout.

[BroncoBeavis]

Originally Posted by Beantown Bronco

How about this? Give the 1 seed from each conference their choice of time slot. They can choose any of the time slots on any day from Saturday to Monday they want, assuming no conflicts with other events in their stadium. Then let the 2s choose from what's left and keep going on down until the worst seeded team is left with the last slot.

I think this could be very interesting and it would add yet another element of strategy for the coaches to consider.

Except by the nature of that decision, you're giving the 'best' time slot to not only the #1 seed, but to the #8 seed as well. Which could complicate matters for the week after. Plus I'm not sure the NFL would want to give up all that scheduling flexibility. Imagine an east coast team being forced into a west coast late Monday Night playoff game. They'd be up all night and into Tuesday before they got home.

I think part of it for me is that NFL is the only major pro sport I can think of (ok maybe that other "football" ) where one bad day at the office can cost you an entire season. I think respecting seeding advantage is maybe the only way the NFL really balances that in any fashion by respecting the whole season's body of work. I hate to see that diminished any further.

Putting together a 13-3 season only to guarantee you a game against some scrub 7-9 team who could shock or injure you out of title contention seems like it's just going too far.

[Beantown Bronco]

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

Except by the nature of that decision, you're giving the 'best' time slot to not only the #1 seed, but to the #8 seed as well.

That's part of the strategy. The #1 team picks the slot that's best for them but might not be so good for the #8 team. Maybe #8 is banged up, so the #1 team goes for a Saturday slot to give them less time to get healthy, etc. Maybe #1 really likes night games and #8 struggles in night games. It's not a given that it's going to be the "best" slot for the lower seeds.

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

Which could complicate matters for the week after. Plus I'm not sure the NFL would want to give up all that scheduling flexibility. Imagine an east coast team being forced into a west coast late Monday Night playoff game. They'd be up all night and into Tuesday before they got home.

All the more reason to fight until the end to get the best seed possible. Don't leave your fate to someone else.

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

Putting together a 13-3 season only to guarantee you a game against some scrub 7-9 team who could shock or injure you out of title contention seems like it's just going too far.

That happened to New Orleans a few years ago in our current system. Clearly, it would happen more if you add more teams to the mix; but it's not like it doesn't already happen in our current system.

[Cito Pelon]

Originally Posted by orinjkrush

this. $$$$$ for owners. without having to pay more for refs. or players.

Well, players would get playoff appearance money. The players might be all for expansion.

I don't know the mechanics of it, but it doesn't sound too bad of an idea. If the players and owners are for it it's fine with me.

[Finger Roll]

Horrible idea. This is the reason I can't follow basketball and hockey during the regular season. Makes those games seem pointless.