9-7 or less teams should not host a playoff game

Walker

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Win your division or shut up. When teams enter the playoffs it goes back to 0-0 so step it up or be one and done.
 

JD_KaPow

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The NFL should institute guidelines governing situations in which 9-7, 8-8 or 7-9 teams win their division, while teams with better records are often forced to settle for a wild card berth, or miss the playoffs altogether due to competing in stronger divisions.
There should be a requirement that any team should have to win 10 games in order to host a playoff game, and even then only be allowed to host teams with 11 wins or less.
Also, any team that wins 10 games in a season should automatically be in the playoffs. The NFL could add wild card games to accommodate such teams.
But it is unfair for a team like the Cowboys or the Eagles to potentially host a 12-13 win team that became a wildcard team because they played in a tougher division.
Two words to explain why your argument is wrong: unbalanced schedules.

There are plenty of pairs of teams in the NFC that play only 3 common opponents (can't be fewer than that given the way the schedule is built). For Dallas, that includes San Francisco and New Orleans (one of the three was head-to-head of course). The overall W-L record can be a very poor indicator of relative strength in such a scheduling environment.
 

FuzzyLumpkins

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The NFL should institute guidelines governing situations in which 9-7, 8-8 or 7-9 teams win their division, while teams with better records are often forced to settle for a wild card berth, or miss the playoffs altogether due to competing in stronger divisions.
There should be a requirement that any team should have to win 10 games in order to host a playoff game, and even then only be allowed to host teams with 11 wins or less.
Also, any team that wins 10 games in a season should automatically be in the playoffs. The NFL could add wild card games to accommodate such teams.
But it is unfair for a team like the Cowboys or the Eagles to potentially host a 12-13 win team that became a wildcard team because they played in a tougher division.

Only way that makes sense is to get rid of divisions. Otherwise they do not matter beyond scheduling. As others have pointed out the schedules are not remotely equitable.
 

loublue22

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We've been on the other side of stupid tiebreak/homefield rules before, in 2014 we had the same record as Sea and GB and beat Sea got the 3 seed. It evens out over time.
 

DandyDon52

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The NFL should institute guidelines governing situations in which 9-7, 8-8 or 7-9 teams win their division, while teams with better records are often forced to settle for a wild card berth, or miss the playoffs altogether due to competing in stronger divisions.
There should be a requirement that any team should have to win 10 games in order to host a playoff game, and even then only be allowed to host teams with 11 wins or less.
Also, any team that wins 10 games in a season should automatically be in the playoffs. The NFL could add wild card games to accommodate such teams.
But it is unfair for a team like the Cowboys or the Eagles to potentially host a 12-13 win team that became a wildcard team because they played in a tougher division.
My idea is to have the weak div winner like the east this year have a playoff game with the good team that normally does not get a WC spot.
The winner of that moves on to wc round, that way both teams have a chance, and it is decided on the field, not by rules.
This like yours would add a extra week of playoffs, a WC week 1 and winners move on to WC week 2
 

MWH1967

The Cook
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Really? I didn't even realize that.
only time I notice a cheerleader is when one of the players run into them on the sideline....
rofl.gif
lol!!
 

JoeKing

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The NFL should institute guidelines governing situations in which 9-7, 8-8 or 7-9 teams win their division, while teams with better records are often forced to settle for a wild card berth, or miss the playoffs altogether due to competing in stronger divisions.
There should be a requirement that any team should have to win 10 games in order to host a playoff game, and even then only be allowed to host teams with 11 wins or less.
Also, any team that wins 10 games in a season should automatically be in the playoffs. The NFL could add wild card games to accommodate such teams.
But it is unfair for a team like the Cowboys or the Eagles to potentially host a 12-13 win team that became a wildcard team because they played in a tougher division.
That's just your opinion. It's not a compelling argument. Each division is given a playoff seed to compete for. There is nothing wrong with that system, no matter how those divisions finish. Then there are two wild card seeds awarded to the two best W-L records that did not win a division in each conference. Leave the system alone.
 

Ranched

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Sorry have to disagree. Example, NE clinched the division. Easiest one in the league. They have yet to defeat a good team but they made the playoffs because of their record.

How is that fair as opposed to a team who is 8-8 or 9-7 and HAVE defeated good teams and shouldn't be allowed in the playoffs because they didn't win 10 games?! o_O
christmas-gift.gif
 

HoosierCowboy

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Before a team with less wins hosts a playoff game, the commissioner and the replay booth need to investigate every play to see how many pass interference calls to reverse; the team with the most must them divide that total by the number of players who ever said that their team was a family, and multiplied by the number games in which their coaches wore non-matching outfits. Any even number hosts. In case of a tie (both even numbers), the team with the most cheerleaders gets to host. It's as easy as that.
 

glimmerman

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It’s not broke. Don’t try to fix it. It’s a privilege the best team from each division gets.
 

nightrain

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It makes for good drama. Those teams scare the bejesus out of everyone.
 

OmerV

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CowboysZone ULTIMATE Fan
Before a team with less wins hosts a playoff game, the commissioner and the replay booth need to investigate every play to see how many pass interference calls to reverse; the team with the most must them divide that total by the number of players who ever said that their team was a family, and multiplied by the number games in which their coaches wore non-matching outfits. Any even number hosts. In case of a tie (both even numbers), the team with the most cheerleaders gets to host. It's as easy as that.
It just took the right person with a sharp mind to figure it out. KUDOS!
 

charron

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The only way to eliminate such oddities is to have no divisions at all.
The top 6, or 8 if expanded get in. No more rival games just a rotational schedule each year to where you don't play a certain 4 teams that year. Do not play the same team twice either.

However...then their will be someone that whines...well the 7th and 8th NFC team is better than the 5th and 6th AFC team why aren't they in the playoffs....

It is set up this way for good reasons. Keep it the same.


Might as well go further and get rid of conferences too. Just take the best 16 teams and rank then by wins i guess.
 

cowboyec

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bull.
you win your division...you get the spoils.
in this case...a home play-off game.
amazing how some on here "hate" Dallas...boggles the mind.
 

Bigdog

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The Seattle Seahawks say otherwise when they were 7-9, hosted a wildcard game and beat the 12-4 Saints team.
 

joseephuss

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But then what do you do if a team is 9-7 division winner is in a tough as hell division from top to bottom, and a 10-6 wild card team is in a powder puff division? Or if the 9-7 division winner has one of the toughest schedules in the NFL and the 10-6 wild card has one of the easiest?

No matter the method of choosing home field advantage in the playoffs, there will always be variables that make things seem unfair, and those can change from year to year, and there is no set system that can cover for all variables. Accordingly, the NFL can only come up with a system and stick with it. Giving the division winners the home field advantage over the wild card teams seems like a reasonable way to go.

If it were a tough division, then it is likely those teams would win more games outside of the division and be better than 9-7.

A winning record is tolerable. I don't care for a team that wins a division with a 7-9 or 8-8 record and still gets to host a playoff game. You get rewarded for beating division rivals who clearly aren't that good. If they were good there would be a team with a winning record. This kind of stuff rarely happened in previous formats. Ever since the current 8 division format came around it happens more often and this year another 8-8 division winner could appear. In the current system, a team could theoretically win their division with a 6-10 record or even worse depending on tie breaker scenarios.

It is broke. Anytime a team with a losing record is in the playoffs, that is a broken system. If you still want to reward a team for winning a crappy division, then let them in the playoffs, but go on the road if there is a wildcard team with a better record.
 
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