Rusty's Playoff Fix

john van brocklin

john van brocklin

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RustyBourneHorse said:
I think that it's ridiculous that the Bucs are going to host a playoff game despite, at best, playing with a 9-8 record. I know that this happens from time to time, but I think I may have a solution.

In my scenario, the division winners still gets into the playoffs. However, the team hosting the playoff game is determined instead by record. Whoever has the better record gets the home playoff game. In my view, if you have the better record, then you deserve the home game.

If the NFL is a meritocracy, then the home playoff game should be determined by merit. Plus, this would encourage better play because, if you want a home game in the playoffs, then have a better record.

What say you all?
Click to expand...
I like it
The NBA has been doing this for awhile
 
Jake

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RustyBourneHorse said:
I think that it's ridiculous that the Bucs are going to host a playoff game despite, at best, playing with a 9-8 record. I know that this happens from time to time, but I think I may have a solution.

In my scenario, the division winners still gets into the playoffs. However, the team hosting the playoff game is determined instead by record. Whoever has the better record gets the home playoff game. In my view, if you have the better record, then you deserve the home game.

If the NFL is a meritocracy, then the home playoff game should be determined by merit. Plus, this would encourage better play because, if you want a home game in the playoffs, then have a better record.

What say you all?
Click to expand...

I think if the roles were reversed we'd have threads justifying the division champion hosting a wild card team, despite their W/L records.
 
fivetwos

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RustyBourneHorse said:
I think that it's ridiculous that the Bucs are going to host a playoff game despite, at best, playing with a 9-8 record. I know that this happens from time to time, but I think I may have a solution.

In my scenario, the division winners still gets into the playoffs. However, the team hosting the playoff game is determined instead by record. Whoever has the better record gets the home playoff game. In my view, if you have the better record, then you deserve the home game.

If the NFL is a meritocracy, then the home playoff game should be determined by merit. Plus, this would encourage better play because, if you want a home game in the playoffs, then have a better record.

What say you all?
Click to expand...
The schedule is set up for division play.

In a good division, teams beat up on each other. In a bad one, one team that may not be so great is capable of getting a higher seed than they deserve easily.

These things change quickly and shouldn’t warrant any type of radical rule change. As one small example, going into this year the AFC West looked like an absolute powerhouse and the NFC East looked awful.

I would like to see a simple amendment like if the division winner has a losing record the WC gets the home game. Something like that.
 
Fla Cowpoke

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Reality said:
The NFL has already considered a re-seeding process in the past, but there is a problem with it.

If you reseed without any advantage for winning your division, playing in a tough division, playing in an easy division, etc. then you are giving an inherent advantage and disadvantage to some teams every year.

Winning a division has to mean something or else there is little reason to have divisions.

To me the best way to reward division winners while being fair would be to do this ..

Select four (4) wildcard teams (instead of 3) and make the wildcard week of playoff games only include the wildcard teams so every division winner gets a BYE week as a reward for winning their division.

Then, once wildcard games produce their two (2) winning teams, they could reseed all teams in each conference based on win-loss record.

That would still provide a reward for teams winning their division (getting a BYE week) while being fair to teams with great records that happened to play in a division with other teams that had even better records.
Click to expand...

So, in Round 2 there will be 6 teams? How would you work that and the following week? Would the top two teams get a second bye week? I don't think teams would want to sit for 2 weeks, especially if they are on a roll.
 
Reality

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Fla Cowpoke said:
So, in Round 2 there will be 6 teams? How would you work that and the following week? Would the top two teams get a second bye week? I don't think teams would want to sit for 2 weeks, especially if they are on a roll.
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It would be better if there were 2 wildcard teams or 6 wildcard teams.

However, I do not see the NFL reducing them and I am not sure they want to go from 3 to 6 wildcard teams, which is why I posted what I did.

Either the NFL could have 2 BYE weeks back-to-back for the top 2 seeded teams (more time to heal for the playoffs) with 2 wildcard weekends, or they could have 1 wildcard weekend, then reseed everyone for the next week of games.

Then in playoff week #2, seed #6 would play at seed #1, seed #5 would play at seed #2 and seed #4 would play at seed #3.

Then, the top two seeded teams that win that weekend, would get a BYE week the next week while the remaining 4 seeded teams play.

Then the next week the championship game would be played.

The winning conference team would get another BYE week (like it is currently) before playing in the Super Bowl.

Again, it would be easier with 2 or 6 wildcard teams, but 4 is likely much easier for the NFL to agree on than reducing it to 2 or increasing it from 3 to 6 teams, at least in one year.
 
Aerolithe_Lion

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Reality said:
The NFL has already considered a re-seeding process in the past, but there is a problem with it.

If you reseed without any advantage for winning your division, playing in a tough division, playing in an easy division, etc. then you are giving an inherent advantage and disadvantage to some teams every year.

Winning a division has to mean something or else there is little reason to have divisions.

To me the best way to reward division winners while being fair would be to do this ..

Select four (4) wildcard teams (instead of 3) and make the wildcard week of playoff games only include the wildcard teams so every division winner gets a BYE week as a reward for winning their division.

Then, once wildcard games produce their two (2) winning teams, they could reseed all teams in each conference based on win-loss record.

That would still provide a reward for teams winning their division (getting a BYE week) while being fair to teams with great records that happened to play in a division with other teams that had even better records.
Click to expand...

I think there are simply too many divisions. How often is there a legit Super Bowl contender in every single division? There have been too many that weren’t close… NFC West for years before 2012 Seattle. AFC south every year since Peyton, NFC south this year and moving forward, NFC East last few years, NFC North once Rodgers retires…

Revert to 3 divisions with 6 teams, allows easy expansion allocation, and odds of this happening go down dramatically. That way the best wild card also gets a home playoff game, Bucs are either back in the north or now in the East, and this fluke that’s popped up since 4-division realignment goes back to being a once a century thing
 
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Vanilla2

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Just schedule the game early as to not give the home crowd the chance to get lathered up all day,

But if this team is who we hope it is they should be able to take care of the sucs.
 
RustyBourneHorse

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fivetwos said:
The schedule is set up for division play.

In a good division, teams beat up on each other. In a bad one, one team that may not be so great is capable of getting a higher seed than they deserve easily.

These things change quickly and shouldn’t warrant any type of radical rule change. As one small example, going into this year the AFC West looked like an absolute powerhouse and the NFC East looked awful.

I would like to see a simple amendment like if the division winner has a losing record the WC gets the home game. Something like that.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much what I'm saying. I agree if it's a tough division, that's one thing. But if it's like the NFC South, then there's no way the division winners should be hosting.
 
fivetwos

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RustyBourneHorse said:
That's pretty much what I'm saying. I agree if it's a tough division, that's one thing. But if it's like the NFC South, then there's no way the division winners should be hosting.
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Yep I agree in general, just don’t want any radical rule change unless they abandon the division play thing and go to two conferences.

So I’d say if the division winner has a losing record, they shouldn’t host as a penalty. That’s really all I’d change.

The strength of every team generally changes year to year. Cant go changing rules every time something that seems unfair happens.
 
Mannix

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jazzcat22 said:
Leave it the way it is, why make change just for change.
If they go by records, just do not have divisions or conferences. Then what happens to the rivalries.
Then fans will say, well if we still had divisions we would have been in the playoffs. But since we have the 8th best record, we are not.
Some fans will not like it no matter what they do.[/QUOTE]

I hate that logic....the "some" fans may only be 5% of them....screw them!!! 5% of Cowboy fans still think Bill Bates belongs in the ROH.
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JayFord

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im with you

whoever has the better record gets the home game because imo thats fair......
 
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