Under the latest proposal, Week 18 becomes important once again, as teams could earn a home playoff game if they have a better overall record
Earlier in the offseason, during the owners’ meetings in Florida, the NFL declined a few proposals: Automatic first downs on village contact was one, while a couple of others were tabled. One was about how the injured reserve would work, while the other pertained to the NFL’s playoff seeding policy.
Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer reported late last week that the owners are set to vote this week on a major change to playoff seedings. The proposal first came from the Detroit Lions, who wanted the playoff seedings to be ranked by the record and not based on who wins the division.
The Athletic has an update, and the proposal will be tweaked if passed. Per the new proposal, the first round of the playoffs would be seeded as it currently is. If you win your division, you get home-field advantage in the Wild Card round. The tweak takes place after the first weekend. Teams would be re-seeded by overall record. So, if a Wild Card team advances and has a better record than one of the remaining division winners, they would assume the higher seed and play a home game.
That would have shaken up last year’s NFC playoffs. The Rams would have traveled to Detroit to play the Lions, but I still think the Lions would have lost.
Breer notes that the primary tiebreaker under the new proposal applies to the division champs. Meaning winning your division would trump any head-to-head record, which still gives teams an incentive to win their division.
When we projected how many games the 49ers would win in 2025, one of the losses was in a meaningless Week 18 game, under the assumption Kyle Shanahan would rest the starters after the division was wrapped up. If this proposal passes, that’s unlikely to happen if you have an incentive to earn a home playoff game.
The Rams and Eagles were used as examples back in March by the NFL:
The Los Angeles Rams went into Week 18 knowing they’d be Nos. 3 or 4 in the NFC. In the adjusted system, they could’ve been Nos. 4, 5, 6 or 7.
The Philadelphia Eagles went into Week 18 set as the No. 2 seed. In the adjusted system, they could’ve fallen to No. 3 with a loss.
The variance in the final week, at least in the eyes of Goodell, would make the final week of the season equally as important as the other weeks, which has not been the case in previous seasons.
We’ll see if this proposal is passed, declined, or tabled until next offseason.