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

[Big Turk]

I have been thinking about this recently.  

 

There is no other major league sport that gives the enormous advantage that the NFL does to it's #1 team in the conference. All of those teams have to play in the first round of the playoffs. NBA now even have play-in games to get into the playoffs...although I am not sure why simply having a better record doesn't qualify you. What's the point of all those games if you can be eliminated by a team with a worse record before the actual playoffs?? That doesn't make much sense, unless it's a money grab.

 

NHL has 8 teams, MLB has 6 teams. Nobody has any byes.  All of those sports play far more games than the NFL. Granted, the physical toll is different for NFL players, but still.

 

It used to be the top 2 teams that got a bye when there were 6 teams. Why when there could have been 3 normal playoff games, I am not sure of.  Now that they expanded to 7, obvious one team has to get a bye.  Expanding to 8 should eliminate the bye and the unfair advantage that it gives them.

 

[BillsFanSD]

I agree with this.  It was fine when the top two teams got byes, and it would be fine if nobody got a bye.  Giving just one team a bye (along with HFA throughout) is kind of lopsided.  

[What a Tuel]

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.

Edited December 7, 2022 by What a Tuel

[Greg S]

I also agree. This would be a good idea. Also, I would increase the regular season to 18 games so everybody has 9 home/away and reduce the preseason to 2 games.

[JerseyBills]

I do think it's a bit unfair that only 1 team per conference gets a huge bye . Considering most the time the top 2-3 teams have the same record or are a game apart and ya never know what can happen in WC weekend 

 

I personally like this idea or I'd go back to the 6 team, 2 team bye idea. Both are just more fair than the current playoff atmosphere. 

 

But ya , the 8 team , no bye recipe is as fair as it gets. Only issue is half the league makes the playoffs in that scenario.  The team that has the bye in current format has a huge advantage 

Edited December 7, 2022 by JerseyBills

[The Red King]

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.

[Scott7975]

I actually hate that they made it 7 and got rid of the #2 seed bye.  

[Freddie's Dead]

No.

[TheBrownBear]

Yes.  The single bye is absurd when you consider the uneven schedules and differences in strengths of divisions.  If you're gonna do a bye system, I think you need to have at least 2 byes as we did under the old 6 team system.  Not sure how to make that work unless you added another week of playoffs.  Just spitballing, but maybe non-division winners (5-8) play for the right to meet the 3 and 4 seeds in the first divisional round.  Every divisional winner gets at least a 1 week bye and the top 2 get two weeks off?

 

Edit: But yes, I'd prefer an 8 team playoff with no bye.

Edited December 7, 2022 by TheBrownBear

[Don Otreply]

No, they should in fact reduce the number of teams to what it was two years ago, and  go by a teams win loss record, so crappy teams and or divisions get excluded all together.  This rewarding crap organizations with post season slots really does needs to stop. If a team does not have a winning record they do not for any reason get a post season slot, is that to much to ask? 
 

 

 

 

Edited December 7, 2022 by Don Otreply

[The Jokeman]

2 minutes ago, JerseyBills said:

I do think it's a bit unfair that only 1 team per conference gets a huge bye . Considering most the time the top 2-3 teams have the same record or are a game apart and ya never know what can happen in WC weekend 

 

I personally like this idea or I'd go back to the 6 team, 2 team bye idea. Both are just more fair than the current playoff atmosphere. 

 

But ya , the 8 team , no bye recipe is as fair as it gets. Only issue is half the league makes the playoffs in that scenario.  

Who wants fair? Being the best should be rewarded toss in makes most teams not put in scrubs at end of the season making fair/unfair for other teams below them in the standings.

[WhoTom]

10 minutes ago, Big Turk said:

It used to be the top 2 teams that got a bye when there were 6 teams. Why when there could have been 3 normal playoff games, I am not sure of. 

 

If they play 3 games in the first round, that leaves three winners going into the second round. Unless the number of teams is a power of two, there has to be a bye for someone.

Edited December 7, 2022 by WhoTom

[Mike in Horseheads]

No. It rewards the reg season best record

[HOUSE]

If you can find a way to make more money for owners they will send a private jet right  to your house 

[Straight Hucklebuck]

No, the Playoffs are watered down enough as it is. 

[Big Turk]

4 minutes ago, WhoTom said:

 

If they play 3 games in the first round, that leaves three winners going into the second round. Unless the number of teams is a power of two, there has to be a bye for someone.

 

Yeah you are right...MLB does give the top 2 teams byes, so it was similar to the NFL with only 6 teams.

[TheBrownBear]

2 minutes ago, Mike in Horseheads said:

No. It rewards the reg season best record

But should teams be rewarded for playing in a crappy division that gifts them 5 or 6 wins every year?  I'd be okay with it if there was a second bye, since it sort of protects against this situation.  

[Southern_Bills]

7 minutes ago, Straight Hucklebuck said:

No, the Playoffs are watered down enough as it is. 

 

Completely agree, 50% of the league shouldn't make the playoffs. 

[Process]

No. Half the league in the playoffs? Did you watch the Bills/Pats and chiefs/Steelers games last year? There are already too many . 

[billsbackto81]

16 minutes ago, Greg S said:

I also agree. This would be a good idea. Also, I would increase the regular season to 18 games so everybody has 9 home/away and reduce the preseason to 2 games.

I agree but just go back to 16 if you want to keep it even. The extra game only benefits the owners pockets.

[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