The NFL started utilizing record-based home-field benefit within the playoffs in 1975, nevertheless it took till 1990 for each division winner to obtain a assured postseason house sport. The Lions have challenged a long-held norm by proposing a change to take away the assure of a division champion being assured a minimum of one January house tilt.
No change within the NFL’s playoff construction occurred on the league conferences this week, however the Detroit proposal was not voted down. No vote happened, because the league tabled the measure, in keeping with NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero. Nonetheless, some groups supported it. Extra notably, Roger Goodell provided some reward to what could be a big change — one that had already come up earlier than the Lions made an official proposal.
“I believed it’s a very wholesome proposal and a really wholesome level that we have to consider and proceed to take a look at,” Goodell mentioned, via CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones. “It went by many alternative varieties. There was some nice knowledge to indicate that we should always actually take a look at some kind or model of this. However there was additionally a extremely sturdy perspective that profitable the division was the No. 1 factor. Once you come into coaching camp, that’s the objective: win that division first. And will that reward for profitable that division be you’re within the playoffs and a house sport?”
Whereas competitors committee member Mike Tomlin pushed again in opposition to stripping division champs of first-round house video games, Jones notes the Cowboys had been one of many groups that supported a format through which a group’s file — no matter its divisional end — dictated the postseason websites. This is able to have benefited the Vikings final yr, because the Lions’ Week 18 win over their division rival pushed 14-3 Minnesota to the No. 5 seed — forward of an eventual loss to the 10-7 Rams, who rested starters after being assured of a house sport by advantage of an NFC West title.
The NFL’s first 5 post-merger playoff brackets got here with out data figuring out house fields, because the websites rotated yearly. The 14-0 Dolphins famously needed to play the 1972 AFC Championship Recreation at Three Rivers Stadium. When the league shifted to record-based home-field willpower in 1975, the division winner with the third-best file nonetheless needed to start on the street as a consequence of solely 4 groups per convention making the playoffs. From 1978-89, every convention’s third-best division champ additionally started on the street in opposition to the No. 2 seed — below a setup that includes one wild-card sport and three groups holding first-round byes per convention. The NFL’s transfer to six-team playoff brackets in 1990 started guaranteeing house video games to division champs.
This has produced some fascinating matchups, with .500-or-worse groups utilizing the house sport to upend higher opposition. The 2008 Chargers went from 5-8 to 8-8 and upset the 12-4 Colts in time beyond regulation, whereas Marshawn Lynch‘s “Beastquake” journey powered the 7-9 Seahawks to a win over the defending Tremendous Bowl champion Saints (11-5) in 2010. A Tim Tebow-to-Demaryius Thomas game-winner propelled the 8-8 Broncos to a 2011 wild-card win over the 12-4 Steelers, whereas a 7-8-1 Panthers group defeated an 11-5 Cardinals squad — one utilizing a third-string QB — in 2014. Washington (2020) and Tampa Bay (2022) additionally hosted video games as sub-.500 groups. These situations seem to have come up on the conferences.
“There was some dialogue probably about should you’re .500 or much less and also you gained that division, do you have to additionally get the house sport? I feel there was some curiosity in that additionally,” Goodell mentioned. “However I feel the fact is it was very wholesome and I feel there might be extra dialogue of it.”
As a transfer to 18 video games appears inevitable in the not-too-distant future, the prospect of golf equipment clinching divisions earlier looms. A stability between guaranteeing a division winner a playoff spot however not a house sport might assist drive groups — significantly these with stronger home-field benefits — to maintain pushing for greater seeds. Resting starters in Week 18 has grow to be pretty frequent because the schedule expanded, and this figures to return up — particularly with an 18th sport all however sure to be added earlier than the 2020s wrap — when homeowners revisit this dialogue.
Whereas the NFL yanking a house sport away from division champs would devalue the accomplishment to a level, it could appear unlikely the divisions would devolve into the pretty meaningless coalitions the NBA makes use of. Goodell recurrently drives adjustments, and his not dismissing Detroit’s proposal opens the door to this turning into a critical speaking level.
