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Originally Posted by Jason14h
Honestly they should just simulate 1000 Madden games from the exact point it was suspended as suggested earlier. Who complains/Isn't it the 'fairest' representation of what would happen?
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That's a much better idea than flipping a coin.
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Until you eliminate divisions division winners should be rewarded, even if it's a crappy division. It still is winning something. Wild card teams won nothing. Crappy division winners just don't deserve the advantage of a home game. Which helps, obviously, since we've seen two of the last three sub .500 division winners actually win a playoff game. But adding the #7 seed hasn't done anything, only the Colts stayed within two TDs in their loss. Every other game has been a boring, one sided game, and sneaking in Trubisky, Ben's corpse and an Eagles team last year who couldn't pass the ball made for dreadful games.
If you choose to placate Buffalo and Cincinnati by totally changing the schedule for weeks to have them play, more teams than them will be facing unfair situations. Again, no perfect situation here. If it's not voiding the game then flip a coin, that is currently a real NFL tiebreaker, so go with that. It was probably a 50/50 game anyway, although with the knowledge of the first 10 minutes it was maybe a 60/40 Bengals game. But every scenario leaves someone screwed. Voiding screws the fewest people.
Six teams per conference was perfect. The NFL did not need to deviate from that. But gambling, TV deals, bigger salary caps and player money etc...Was always gonna happen. It's gonna be terrible when they go to eight, and eventually 10. But money wins, always. So we'll have to deal with an even more watered down playoffs. But lets wait as long as possible.
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Looking back several years, looks like I was wrong about how common .500 or worse division winners happen. Maybe it's because it makes such headlines when it does happen, making it seem like it happens more often than it actually does. Still though, without home field they probably lose all three of those games, and maybe by multiple scores, creating situations similar to the wild card ones you were mentioning.
The case for shrinking the playoffs makes sense, but you hate to see teams with 10 or maybe even 11 wins missing out, simply because in some years one conference is stacked while the other is thin.