Fixing the NFL's playoff system

The NFL owners will vote on a proposal to alter the playoff system this week. The new system would fix some problems, but not all of them.

The NFL owners have congregated in Minneapolis this week to discuss and vote on a variety of football matters. Already, the owners have unanimously approved a proposal that allows NFL players to participate in the 2028 Olympics in flag football. Another vote, expected to transpire some time on Wednesday, will determine the fate of the tush push.

While those two items have generated considerable attention, and not without reason. Though flag shares only a passing resemblance to tackle football, the NFL hopes it can still increase interest in the sport abroad. Meanwhile, the tush push has grown into one of the most polarizing plays in the league, with some contending that it looks like rugby and others arguing that banning the tush push sets a poor precedent and unfairly punishes a single team.

But while the changes to flag football and the future of the tush push have dominated the headlines, a third proposal could have even more consequences for the league and those who compete within it: altering the playoff format.

The method for determining who qualifies for the postseason has remained largely unchanged since the AFL-NFL merger. The division winners in each conference earned spots in the tournament -- the top seeds specifically -- along with wild-card teams positioned below them in the seeding. The number of wild cards has changed over the years. In 1970, four clubs in the AFC and another four in the NFC earned seats at the table. That figure later expanded to six clubs in each conference thanks to the addition of wild-card berths.

When the league reached 32 total franchises in 2002, the NFL realigned the divisions to create symmetry. Now, each conference would split into four divisions, and each of those divisions would feature exactly four clubs. The league would again allow division winners to automatically qualify for the top seeds in each conference, leaving just two wild-card berths to fill out the field. The 2021 season saw a seventh wild-card spot introduced to bring the total number of playoff teams to 14.

On the surface, this system seems to make sense. The NFL incentivizes clubs to try to win division titles in order to secure prime playoff seeding, and enough wild-card berths exist to generally ensure that a strong non-division winner still has a place in the tournament.

However, on closer examination, this system has a serious flaw. When a single division contains either too many of the best teams by record or too few, it unfairly warps the playoff field.