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It's bad enough that they are screwing with overtime in the playoffs. Let's not have them completely screw the entire playoffs by changing to a straight record system.
I don't think the OP was suggesting that it be a straight record system. I am guessing what he meant was that division winners would still get in, but the seeding would be based on record and division winners wouldn't automatically get a 1-4 seed.
Example:
1. Patriots 13-3 (East Winner)
2. Jets 12-4 (WildCard)
3. Ravens 10-6 (North Winner)
4. Steelers 9-7 (Wild Card won tiebreaker over Colts)
5. Colts 9-7 (South Winner)
6. Chargers 8-8 (West Winner)
I don't think the OP was suggesting that it be a straight record system. I am guessing what he meant was that division winners would still get in, but the seeding would be based on record and division winners wouldn't automatically get a 1-4 seed.
Example:
1. Patriots 13-3 (East Winner)
2. Jets 12-4 (WildCard)
3. Ravens 10-6 (North Winner)
4. Steelers 9-7 (Wild Card won tiebreaker over Colts)
5. Colts 9-7 (South Winner)
6. Chargers 8-8 (West Winner)
How is that any more fair? The whole problem with all of this is that people want to define "fair" from their perspective. It's not "fair" for a 9-7 team to have a home game instead of a 10-6 team. Well, perhaps it wasn't fair that the 10-6 team played the toughest schedule in the league, and the 9-7 team played the easiest. Why does an 8-8 winner deserve to make the playoffs over a 9-7 team that came in 3rd place in another division?
There's no way to have a 'fair' seeding system as long as there's an unbalanced schedule, just as there's no way to have a 'fair' overtime system other than eliminating overtime entirely.
You can't have perfect fairness, period, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a fairer system than the present one.
Basically, the current value judgment by the NFL is that a team that wins its division, no matter how bad its overall record might be, is more worthy of a home playoff game than a team that might win more games but fails to win its division.
Some people would argue this is the fairest system, others that it isn't.
Should they change the playoff system to go just based on record? Either the Pats or the Jets are going to get shafted here by having a say 12-4 team go to play a team at their field that is 9-7 or 10-6...to me that just sounds messed up. Whats your take?