Should the NFL Expand the playoffs to 8 teams and eliminate byes?

[Boatdrinks]

Long standing tradition of byes in the NFL playoffs, but the expansion screwed up the formula. Top 2 should get a bye, so hopefully they can work that back in. There should be some reward for the best records, and HFA isn’t as big as it used to be on its own with the cap and free agency. 

[Matt_In_NH]

Half the team making the playoffs sucks though.  It was good how it was...but they scratch out more revenue on WC weekend now.  Adding another game will do that again but not by as much.

[Mr. WEO]

sure.  they could call it hockey

[Donuts and Doritos]

I know it's just 1 more game but I'm a no. They keep adding games (17 regular season) & changing dates (Thursday night football. Saturday. Next year Black Friday). It's more more more (3 games in 12 days). & We keep seeing injuries to key players & exhausted teams not play well. I don't want more of a watered down product. I want good teams playing good football. Less is more IMO.

 

(Yes, I'm bitter about Von)

 

Edited December 7, 2022 by Donuts and Doritos

[TheFunPolice]

absolutely not!

 

it's already too much, and an 8th team would mean even more bad teams in the tournament 

[RiotAct]

54 minutes ago, The Red King said:

I remember when you had three division champs and two wild cards.  The division winners all got a bye  where the two wild cards had to play an extra game (against each other).  That seems fairer then what we got now.

up until 2002, right?  when they went to 8 divisions instead of 6 with the addition of the Texans?

[BillsfaninSB]

Yes but go back to a 16 game regular season.

 

Rather watch a playoff game than teams who are out of the postseason. 

[djp14150]

51 minutes ago, What a Tuel said:

Think it was because 1 seed for each division and the lesser of the 4 divisions had to play the wildcards.

 

But yeah, I think 8 is probably coming. There may be a couple bad teams in there but the bye is just unnecessary at this point. Home field advantage is incentive enough.

If they expand to 8 teams there will be a second bye.

 

they could also do a bigger format of 

 

10 team…

Week 1 

3 vs 10

4 vs 9

5 vs 8

6 vs 7

week 2

4 winners face off for 2 survivors 

week 3

Survivor 1 at 1

survivor 2 at 2 

week 4

Conf finals 

 

or 8 team 

week 1 5 vs 8 and 4 vs 7

week 2 survivors vs 3 and 4 

Week 3 survivors vs 1 and 2 

week 4 conf finals 

week 5 super bowl

 

 

 

 

 

[beebe]

I would:

 

1) get rid of conferences

 

2) expand size of divisions (8 teams in 4 divisions, divided up by region)

 

3) do round robin style format in each division (you play each division team once, alternate home/away each year) 

 

NFL scheduling is both inequitable and boring. Winning the AFC East in 2022 is way harder than winning the NFC South. The Bills/Jets/Dolphins were stuck behind a generational talent for 15 years (essentially playing for a Wild Card) and the Broncos/Chargers/Raiders are stuck in the same position for the next 10-15 years as well behind Chiefs/Mahomes. 

 

Playing 6 of your 17 games (35% of overall games) against three teams in a 32-team league is boring. Do you think Titans fans yearn for two games vs the Texans or Jaguars? I can't imagine. It would be great if the Bills, instead of playing six games vs the same three teams, could instead play the Cowboys, 49ers and Chargers this year. It would be nice to see Chiefs vs Eagles this year. Or a host of other good matchups. 

 

It would be especially great to see some of these matchups in the playoffs. We won't ever see a Bills vs Chiefs Super Bowl because they both happen to be in the same arbitrary conference that was sketched out 50 years ago (or more specifically, in 2002 with realignment.) There can never be Bills vs Jets Super Bowl. There can't be Packers vs Cowboys. This is stupid. It's way too limiting. It creates less exciting playoff matchups. The NFL should be all in on creating as many great matchups as possible. 

 

Imagine a young kid who became a Bills fan this year. Let's say he lives in Tampa. Let's say his parents don't travel. Well, the Bills visited Tampa last year. The next time they are scheduled to visit Tampa again will be 2029. After that, the next trip to Tampa will be 2037. Josh Allen will be 41 years old in 2037. So the kid in Tampa gets to see his favorite team play in his home town twice in 15 years, and might possibly only get to see Josh Allen once — in 2029! Meanwhile, the young Bills fan in KC, who started cheering for the Bills last year, got to see the Bills play twice last year in KC. And again this year. And maybe again later this year. And again next year. And probably a handful more times in the next decade alone. Ridiculous!

Edited December 7, 2022 by beebe
edit

[T master]

It may be a good thing because some teams are playing really good hitting their groove & then they have a off week & lose their mojo .

[Mikie2times]

I think most the sports leagues do a great job at rendering the regular season meaningless by not giving it's best teams more of an advantage in the playoffs. These are professional athletes, usually the competition is tight and the best teams over an entire season should be given an advantage over the rest. That said, I have had a huge issue with the current one team bye system. One team can have a horrible division, injury luck, all sorts of outlying factors. Rarely do we ever have one clear #1 with a distant #2. Usually it is extremely close. This year we will have beaten every division leader and will win our division 🤑 but we still have risk of not getting the bye.  74% of the bye teams win in the divisional round so in our current system, you have what amounts to a 75% chance of playing the AFC championship game at home if you get that bye. It matters and it should be given to two teams as they used to in order to balance out how much of an advantage it is (spare me examples of wild card wonders or how the bye team never seems to win the big game). Run a sample size large enough and it's a big advantage, one an injury riddled team like Buffalo could really stand to gain.  

[Dick_Cheney]

Yep. 8 teams, seeded 1-8. I would even go so far as to eliminate the division winners hosting a game. It'd be far more interesting and fair imo to have each top 4 team host the lesser seeds.

 

That way we'd never have to worry about a team with a lesser or even losing record hosting somebody with a better one. That'll never happen, but it'd be fun as hell.

[Big Turk]

1 hour ago, Mr. WEO said:

sure.  they could call it hockey

Or basketball.

Just now, Dick_Cheney said:

Yep. 8 teams, seeded 1-8. I would even go so far as to eliminate the division winners hosting a game. It'd be far more interesting and fair imo to have each top 4 team host the lesser seeds.

 

That way we'd never have to worry about a team with a lesser or even losing record hosting somebody with a better one. That'll never happen, but it'd be fun as hell.

 

That's how basketball does it.

[Mr. WEO]

Just now, Big Turk said:

Or basketball.

 

That's how basketball does it.

 

Yeah but NHL  is a joke.  Why would you want the NFL to be so?

[BADOLBILZ]

 

The early returns on 7 playoff teams weren't very good...........wildcard weekend didn't look like playoff football last year.......the quality of play ramped up in the divisional round(when it looked REALLY good).  

 

But then both SB teams were division winners who had to play in the WC round and they both looked gassed in the SB.    It was a close game but it wasn't high quality football.

 

Going to 4 games in each conference on WC weekend?   How does that not lead to more speed boating like what the Bills/Chiefs did to NE/Pitt last year?

 

So I'd say let it play out with 7 for a while and see if the quality of play in the WC round evens out.

 

I'm more in line with what is clearly the ultimate plan of NFL ownership........reducing preseason to 2 games and going to 18 regular season games (with two regular season byes) and keeping the playoffs as they are and dominating the February TV market.

 

I'd prefer the old system with just 6 playoff teams and 2 byes..........but I do remember thinking that it was unfair that the often clearly inferior #2 seed also got a bye back in the days when the Bills were finishing as the #1 seed 3 times in 4 years back in the early 90's.

[dhgold]

No. The league should go back to six teams from each conference making the playoffs with two of the six getting byes.

[The Wiz]

once they go to 18 games, it will be 8 teams per conference with 1 and 2 with a 1st round bye and push out the season until late February/early march when they added a 2nd bye week.

 

That looks like how they want it to go IMO.

 

They should also expand the roster to 60.  This will probably happen in 2 year when the cap hits close to 300m (I'm guessing but I think it will get there).

Edited December 8, 2022 by The Wiz

[Joe Ferguson]

Hear me out. We should have a best of 3 series game for each AFC & NFC championship games and best of 5 series game in Super Bowl.

[Ramza86]

Only because we have 7, it only makes sense to have 8.

[JaCrispy]

-8 playoff teams

 

-With 1 bye week before the start of the playoffs, so ALL teams get a week off

Edited December 8, 2022 by JaCrispy