The NFL Is Reportedly Expected To Increase The Amount Of Playoff Teams In Each Conference To 7, With Only 1 Bye Per Conference
ESPN- If and when a new collective bargaining agreement is finalized -- and there is now mounting optimism it could be done sometime in the next week -- it is expected to change the NFL's playoff structure as it is currently constituted for next season, league sources told ESPN.
Under the current proposal that is expected to take effect in the new CBA when it is done, seven teams from each conference will qualify for the playoffs instead of the six that currently do. In addition, only one team from each conference will receive a first-round bye as opposed to the two that currently do, league sources said. That would mean a revised postseason schedule that includes six games on wild-card weekend, with three on Saturday and three on Sunday.
I'm trying my best to fight every Old Man bone in my body and avoid shaking my fist while yelling at a cloud that the NFL is thinking about changing a playoff format that clearly works because old idiots like me almost always hate change. You know why? Because I'm sure people lost their shit when the AFL and NFL merged and gave birth to the first wild card, more people went crazy when another wild card team was added in 1978, and even MORE people went bananas when the last two wild card teams were added in 1990, leading to the beautiful bracket of mayhem that we experience every January.
Which is why I'm not going to bitch about another wild card team being added. The 7th best team in each conference likely won't dilute the playoff pool all that much considering at least one division winner usually does that in the not-so-distant-past (looking at you NFC East and AFC South), it leads to more good football teams trying to win more games now that the battle for the first seed will be even more important as well as the second seed having to play an extra game, and I'm sure as shit not going to complain about having 6 games on Wild Card Weekend instead of 4. That means more football, more gambling at my local Penn National Gaming casino, and less "The Divisional Round is the best week of the NFL season" takes because two 12 hour marathons of playoff football on Wild Card Weekend sounds glorious.
We can debate CBA issues like adding a 17th game in a sport where players' bodies and brains already are laid to waste in a 16 game season is a good idea and any other money mumbo jumbo. But more football is good for me and great for people that live for the In The Hunt graphic since simple mathematics tells us more teams will be included in it later in the season.
This gif is also valid for any Jeff Fisher superfans that have made it their life's work to get Mr. .500 another NFL head coaching job