[Senator Clay Davis]

Having the 17th game and the 7th seed has allowed teams to basically sacrifice week 1. Seven losses has been good enough to make the playoffs in either conference every year since they went to the current format. Back when it was 16 games and six teams in the playoffs you usually had to have no more than six losses (except for horrible division champs) to get in. So you can essentially treat week 1 as another preseason game, and go 10-6 the rest of the way like you used to have to do to make the playoffs.