Minimum win % threshold for division winner playoff spot?

What's the point of having divisions?

As long as you have to play everyone in your division twice, Divisional Winners should always make the playoffs.

a playoff seed for the division winner still works - this year, with the NFC East is a bit of an outlier.

But I do think the NFL should change it so that homefield advantage is determined by overall record. None of the NFC East teams deserve to host a playoff game this year.

want "general fairness", go to a Conference format where each team plays every other team once, otherwise, just live with the rules of divisional play.

Don't understand why people are itching to change a system that isn't broken.

They currently have fans of 4 teams in the NFC East with 3 wins glued to the TV after thanksgiving. What is their incentive to change?

Seattle in 2010 and Carolina in 2014. Dictions still make sense. This is a scenario for aberrations

divisions would be pointless so rivalries would be gone. I don’t mind what record someone has getting into the playoffs, if they stink they should be beaten and that’s that. They are all big boys, fans should be too.

Taking away the playoff berth for division winners would completely ruin the existence of divisions.

The league wants the divisions to be important, and I agree.

There could be a better argument to be made for taking away the home game in certain circumstances, but I don't see that changing either.

Just leave it, imo. A bunch of folks seem to get all bent out of shape when you have a division like this year's NFCE, but how often does it really happen?

In comment 15058051 eclipz928 said:

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a playoff seed for the division winner still works - this year, with the NFC East is a bit of an outlier. But I do think the NFL should change it so that homefield advantage is determined by overall record. None of the NFC East teams deserve to host a playoff game this year.

I very much agree with this. Or something to that effect. Maybe if you are .500 or lower by the end of the season you lose the right to play a playoff game at home.

In comment 15058102 chopperhatch said:

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In comment 15058051 eclipz928 said: Quote: a playoff seed for the division winner still works - this year, with the NFC East is a bit of an outlier. But I do think the NFL should change it so that homefield advantage is determined by overall record. None of the NFC East teams deserve to host a playoff game this year. I very much agree with this. Or something to that effect. Maybe if you are .500 or lower by the end of the season you lose the right to play a playoff game at home.

I think you should be at least 8-8 to host a playoff game.

Happens so rarely that it doesn’t need to be addressed.

There are 8 divisions and this happens once every 10 years. That’s 80-1 times it works out fine.

there’s no inherently right way to do it. I agree with FMIC that it’s not broken.

The fact we are talking about this is a win as far as the NFL is concerned. They would rather have us talking about it than talking about something else like, say, the NBA season.

Also, while the NFC East has been terrible, let’s take a look at what happened this year. First, there’s a pandemic. Second, three teams in the division have new coaches and did not get to have a proper off-season. One team that hired a proven experienced NFL head coach (WFT) seems to be getting better now that they have a professional quarterback under center. If they had had preseason games they might have ditched Dwayne Haskins sooner. The team that hired a promising coordinator seems to be turning their season around (Giants). Both those teams have second year quarterbacks. One played his way out of his job, the other is improving (apparently).

The third new coach in the division is “proven” but came in dogged by rumors that he was a pretender. He is living down to his worst expectations and his team is circling the drain.

The team with a returning HC got out to the strongest start but is injured and the QB seems to be regressing.

You might see two NFCE teams playing well down the stretch and being a tough out in the playoffs.

You can chalk some of the bad NFC East up to pandemic weirdness, some to transition, some to McCarthy being a downgrade in Dallas. The rest, well, there is still plenty of suck to go around.

...as many but there's just not much evidence supporting it. It wouldn't invalidate divisions but it would be difficult to make it consistently equitable. One year a 7-9 division winner gets locked out and a 9-7 team takes it's place; the next year an 8-8 division winner gets in but a 10-6 sits home. Not equitable. It would almost have to be based on some sort of max win gap between the 4 seed and the best non-playoff qualifier.

It's really only happened twice in recent history. In 2010 we finished 10-6 and sat home while the 7-9 Seahawks got in. In 2014 the 10-6 Eagles missed out while the 7-8-1 Panthers got it. The kicker is that both of those sub .500 teams won their wild card game which makes it even more difficult to justify (thought the CAR/A game in 2014 may have been about the worst playoff football game in the last 20 years).

game was an interesting one. You had a 7-8-1 Panthers team facing a division winning Cardinal team who had Drew Stanton lead them to 10 wins, and then Ryan Lindley had to come in for an injured Stanton at the end of the season.

Their 3rd stringer? Rookie Logan Thomas.

Panthers were favored in the game.

In comment 15058054 Jolly Blue Giant said:

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They currently have fans of 4 teams in the NFC East with 3 wins glued to the TV after thanksgiving. What is their incentive to change?

Bingo

into two leagues. Similar to the Premier League (top league) and Championship League (B division) in English Soccer. You can have 16 NFL teams in each league.

Then institute promotion and relegation in the NFL. The bottom 4 teams in the top league are demoted to the B league, and the top 4 teams in the B league get promoted the the A league.

That allows teams to compete with teams closer to their talent level, and encourages team owners to improve the front office, coaching and talent. It also punishes the teams that won't improve (Detroit, for example).

Want excitement? Even though the Premier League title may be sown up with a month to go, there's incredible interest in who will stay in the Premier League, and which Championship teams will make the jump. Best of all, you have the cream of the NFL fighting for the Lombardi Trophy in League A.

But none of the owners would go for it.

and is likely to produce the worst divisional winner in history, it is still an outlier. A losing team has only won a division less than a handful of times. The system isn't broken or in need of fixing.

There is already a way into the playoffs for non-division winners and it's called the wild card. If you're not good enough to be one of your conference's two wild car spots you have no right to complain about some poorly qualified division winner making it instead of you.

In comment 15058249 JohnF said:

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into two leagues. Similar to the Premier League (top league) and Championship League (B division) in English Soccer. You can have 16 NFL teams in each league. Then institute promotion and relegation in the NFL. The bottom 4 teams in the top league are demoted to the B league, and the top 4 teams in the B league get promoted the the A league. That allows teams to compete with teams closer to their talent level, and encourages team owners to improve the front office, coaching and talent. It also punishes the teams that won't improve (Detroit, for example). Want excitement? Even though the Premier League title may be sown up with a month to go, there's incredible interest in who will stay in the Premier League, and which Championship teams will make the jump. Best of all, you have the cream of the NFL fighting for the Lombardi Trophy in League A.

Get the F out of here with that soccer shit. So if you have a good team that is decimated with injuries you have no chance to win the Super Bowl the next year? Bunch of crap.

And it’s very strange how a contingent of BBIers is so adamantly, emphatically, oddly protective of giving a 7-9 or 6-10 division “winner” a home game over a 10-6 wild card team.

If the 7-9 or 6-10 division “winner” had to visit the 10-6 wild card team instead of the other way around, what difference would it make to you? If your claim to a home playoff game is that you’re the least bad out of four shitty teams, you have no rightful claim.

Pittsburgh would be in league 2 (if I understand it correctly), and Houston would be in league 1. It's an interesting thought, but no thank you.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

So once in a Blue Moon a sub standard division has a winner with a sub .500 record ? Ok so you shake it up because of an aberration?

How about a 10-6 division winner hosting a 12-4 wildcard team? Do you change it for that?

Baseball has the same thing - a division winner may get homefield advantage when it has an inferior record to the wildcard team.

when fans use the rationale of "fairness" in these situations. It is about the rules of the game being followed - not some sense of fairness. The whole reason the Wild Cards were created was so teams that were decent, but didn't win their division still had a shot. If a team doesn't win their division and isn't good enough to be better than the 3 wild card teams, they don't deserve a shot.

It is perfectly fair because the rules are understood from the beginning. If you win your division, you make the playoffs. If you don't win the division, you might not.

As fans, we will certainly appreciate the division format more than the Conference format.