What Will the New NFL Playoff System Look Like?

BY ADAM GREENE

Expanding the playoff field is just good business for the NFL and, unlike an 18-game regular season, there are few members of the NFL Players Association that will balk at the idea.

Indeed, for players, it’s performances in the postseason that garner the bigger paychecks and the lasting impact on history. A Pro Football Hall of Fame resume isn’t complete without at least one memorable playoff performance.

According to reports, the new Collective Bargaining Agreement with expand the playoff field to 14 teams, adding two more than the current 12. The NFL has not expanded the playoff field since 1990. Before that, only 10 teams made the postseason and there was just one Wild Card game.

It should be said that the proposal has a 17-game regular season and a three-game preseason. We’ll have to see what happens with that, but my guess is the new playoff scenario will be a go all around.

So how’s it going to work?

Seven teams from each conference would make the playoffs with only the No. 1 seed getting a first-round bye.

If the rule had been in place this year, the NFC playoff field would have looked like this:

1. San Francisco 49ers
2. Green Bay Packers
3. New Orleans Saints
4. Philadelphia Eagles
5. Seattle Seahawks
6. Minnesota Vikings
7. Los Angeles Rams

The AFC field would have looked like this:

1. Baltimore Ravens
2. Kansas City Chiefs
3. New England Patriots
4. Houston Texans
5. Buffalo Bills
6. Tennessee Titans
7. Pittsburgh Steelers

Would that have changed the eventual Super Bowl champion? Probably not, but there are things I love about it. First, it’s that the Patriots would have still been stuck playing (and losing to) the Titans and the Rams would have had the chance to at least blow their NFC title defense in the second round after upsetting the Packers at Lambeau.

The rest likely plays out the same, with the possible exception that every NFC Wild Card team could have won in the second round. And wouldn’t that have been crazy?

Either way, Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs were hoisting this Lombardi and nobody was stopping that.

What’s fun about expanding the playoffs is the new teams that will appear in it every year. Of course, you’ll have stalwarts. The Chiefs aren’t going anywhere. Neither are the Seahawks. The 49ers’ chances of avoiding that post-Super Bowl loss playoff-missing hangover might have evaporated as well.

This last season we had four new playoff teams (and, obviously, four teams that didn’t make it back). Expanding the field will either bring in more new blood, and give their fanbases something to root for in January, or allow a team on the cusp to hang on and make a late-season run.

It’s also going to save some coaching jobs, as teams like the Cleveland Browns, Denver Broncos, Las Vegas Raiders, Dallas Cowboys, Chicago Bears and even the Atlanta Falcons and Tampa Bay Buccaneers can now realistically shoot for that seventh seed.

The New York Jets finished 7-9 this season. Tom Brady could conceivably be out of New England. Anything could happen. Which is what makes the NFL playoffs so great to begin with. This is a good idea and, according to that same report, it’s coming in 2020.

Get the latest NFL football odds and information–follow BetOnline.ag on Twitter!

BetOnline.ag on Instagram–Follow for the latest odds, stats and information!