On a totally unrelated note, last year the Dope had a Super Bowl prediction contest, in which you predicted the winner, loser, and score of the SB before the playoffs began. I don’t recall who was in charge last year, but is that person willing to do the same this year?
Agreed, I think the current system works well enough and I don’t like the idea of diluting division rivalries to prevent a recurrence of a rare situation.
It does stink that a 7-9 team gets into the playoffs with a home field advantage, and an 8-8 team (the Cardinals) who have a better record can’t even make it into the playoffs at all. But look at what you did get… You had 3 teams (Giants, Cowboys, WFT) all playing on Sunday with meaningful games because they all had a chance to be in that spot. If you based playoff spots purely on record that entire division would have had nothing to play for not just Sunday but probably the last few weeks. And then divisions might as well not even exist, let’s just lump everyone into two big conferences to slug it out.
Another alternative is to give division winners an automatic spot in the playoffs, but still seed them based on record, so that the WFT in this case would be the #7 seed instead of the #4, and would no longer have a home game. That’s more reasonable but I still think it takes away the importance of that division title, and I don’t think it’s worth it. I like the way the system makes divisions matter, I think it’s a smart move that really works to make rivalries a real thing, and those rivalries keep fans invested. Don’t break a working system even if you sometimes get a flukey result.
Said another way…this whole “NFC East suckiness breaks the entire playoff system” hot take on a Monday is just that, a silly hot take. Leave the hair-brained schemes to the clowns on talk radio.
Steve Smith is waving from the back of the room…
I’m a Giants fan and I’m not pissed. They were 6-10. They had opportunities all season to play better and win a crappy division. I’m also of the opinion of that if you need another team to do your dirty work for you, you can’t complain when it doesn’t go away.
Really want to see a 13 loss division winner.
Same here. As soon as the Cowboys were eliminated by the Giants, I was rooting for Philly because I wanted to see the crappiest division winner ever in NFL history (the 6-10 Giants,) just for history’s sake.
If Washington beats Tampa, and the Rams upset Seattle, then Green Bay hosts the lower seeded (but clearly better) Rams, while the Saints would host sucky Washington.
As a Saints fan that would please me, but it seems anti competitive, IMO. Washington very clearly did not “earn” the 4th seed. And ISTM that it’s much more common (and egregious) for a terrible division winner to turn up in the playoffs and wrongly get a home game than your scenario of a tough 10-6 division winner ranking lower than an 11-5 wildcard team. And in your scenario, that 10-6 division winner still would probably be ahead of the lowest wildcard teams, while at present the 11-5 Bucs have to travel to Washington.
They earned it by winning their division. And the concept of having divisions is a way to try to make things competitive in chunks between small groups of teams. It’s not a perfect solution but there isn’t one, whatever they do is going to have a potential negative consequence.
Take note that the scenario you describe requires two upsets, so again this kind of situation is going to be rare, and your outcome is unlikely to happen. (The Rams win is less of an upset than Washington winning, but is still an upset.)
You can’t guarantee fair and competitive matchups. What if there are no upsets and you have the Seahawks, Saints, and Buccaneers winning. Bucs go to Green Bay for the next round, and Hawks go to New Orleans. But what if (knock on wood) Russell gets hurt late in the Rams game and Geno Smith gets suspended for some reason and Seattle has to activate their practice squad QB. Green Bay has to beat Tom Brady in the playoffs while New Orleans has to beat Daniel Etling who last threw an NFL pass in the 2018 preseason. Is that fair? The Saints will have a much easier game despite being a lower seed, and that seems anti-competitive.
Through flukes, weird situations can happen, but the system the NFL has works well enough and I don’t see how it’s worth it to change it.
Doug Pederson’s decision to replace Jalen Hurts with Nate Sudfield had his own players coming after him. According to this article, “According to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jeff McLane, two defensive players had to be restrained after Pederson pulled Hurts for Sudfeld.” Also, team captain and heart of the offensive line Jason Kelce questioned Pederson about that decision. Even members of the coaching staff were left in the dark about the plan.
That’s not good for your football team, to have players, captains, and coaches pissed at you. Good Luck Doug.
Since we don’t yet have a playoff thread, I’ll put this here:
Browns coach Kevin Stefanski, as well as two assistant coaches, and two players (including Pro Bowl guard Joel Bitonio) have tested positive for COVID, and aren’t going to be available for Sunday’s wild card game against the Steelers. The Browns plan to have special teams coordinator Mike Priefer serve as acting head coach on Sunday.
Way back at the start of the season, I opined that teams that don’t handle the pandemic well will be at a distinct disadvantage. The Browns, and their inability to deal properly with Covid, is costing them.
And they will be exceedingly lucky if the list is limited to the 5 people identified so far.
Since 2002, only three times have the other AFC East teams been sub-500. 
I don’t find the logic that “if the giants wanted to make the playoffs they should’ve been better than 6-10” persuasive. If they were 10-6 and this exact same thing happened, would they have a case? The principle would be exactly the same.
This happened to the Browns in 2007. The Colts rested their starters for the last game of the season. I don’t have a problem with that - that’s fairly normal and within their self interest. The legendary Jim Sorgi started the game. Fine.
But here’s the thing - they lost the game on purpose. Tennessee, their opponent, got the ball back up 3 points with something like 2:00 on the clock. The Colts had all 3 timeouts. So the Colts defend against a first down, call their timeouts, and get the ball back, down 3, with like 1:30 on the clock, right?
No, Indy didn’t call their timeouts. They let Tennessee run the clock out even though they could’ve got the ball back. They were only down by 3 points. They very much could’ve won and chose not to. After that game, Tony Dungy bragged about winning a division that had three playoff teams… after he had deliberately let one in.
So, we got the same logic. “If the Browns wanted to go to the playoffs, they should’ve won 11 games, it’s their fault!”
The Browns had to play against teams that were trying to beat them for 16 games. The Titans, who took their playoff spot, only had to play against 15 games against teams trying to beat them. That is fundamentally unfair.
I even enforce this rule in my fantasy football leagues - if someone starts tanking and losing games it ruins the competitiveness of the league, because even if their team is terrible and they won’t make the playoffs, it’s not fair that the people who are playing them get free wins and get an advantage over teams competing with them for the playoffs that didn’t get those free wins.
The Football Team did not have play in as many real football games, that their opponents were trying to win, as the Giants did. That is fundamentally unfair whether the Giants were a 6 win or 12 win team.
Yep, and with the Eagles it’s even more direct. In week 7, the Eagles hosted the Giants and were down 11 in the 4th quarter. The Eagles mounted a big comeback and scored two TDs to win. Then, the Eagles hosted Washington, were down 6 in the 4th, and quit on the game.
I think there are two different things here. Saying the Giants were 6-10 and they should have won more games speaks to Giants fans being upset that they didn’t make the playoffs. As a Giants fan, I agree that they had no business being in the playoffs.
On the other hand, as a football fan I’m not happy with what the Eagles did. It’s not too much to ask that a team do what they can to win the game they’re playing. There’s also the fact that it’s an accepted practice to bench players at the end of the season if they’re in the playoffs. Is anybody accusing the Chiefs of tanking their game against the Chargers?
The fact is that there comes a point in the season where it’s in a team’s long term interest to lose. Most of the time it’s not a big problem because usually the coach’s job is on the line. I don’t know what the solution is to stop this. A draft lottery?
My thoughts exactly. The Giants have no credibility griping about missing the playoffs after losing 10 games; they are exceedingly lucky there was even a possibility of it. But in general an obvious tank job stinks, and especially as a football fan who was hoping to watch a real game, it is really crappy. Imagine you’re watching a foot race and the two guys are neck and neck, and one guy pulls ahead, then the other starts to catch up… Then veers off the track to grab a beer while the other crosses the finish line.
IMHO, it is time for the NFL to ditch the fixed drafting position according to W-L record and use a lottery or something to deter such tanking.
Teams that finish in the bottom 16 get their lottery, teams that finish in the top 16 get their lottery.
That would do away with most losing incentive.
I will note that the major North American league which uses a draft lottery system – the NBA – is the same league which probably has had the worst issue with teams tanking over the years.