The folly of the 4 team divisions

[anditsgood]

This will sound pretty controversial put personally I'd do away with all pre-season games, add a second BYE and increase the number of games to 18 with the following setup:

As it is right now everyone plays their division twice, but then the other 12 games are against the remaining 12 teams in the conference. This way every team in a conference plays almost the same schedule (except for 3 additional division games) which makes their conference records more comparable and fair.

To account for the lack of NFC/AFC matchups the playoffs would be not conference exclusive anymore which would give us also the chance of seeing pure AFC or NFC matchups in the Superbowl.


Like I pointed out the main aim here is to make the records within a conference more balanced and comparable.

I am not really satisfied with the lack of diversity of the schedule on a year-by-year basis (because of the lack of AFC/NFC team matchups) but don't see how to add address this without once again losing the comparability.

Fire away..

I like the preseason games, its a great way to try players in game time situational circumstances that you cannot receive in practice, As the season progresses, the game play gets better , that is from playing the game. if you remove those games, it will take longer for the games to get better, Just like when the NFL decided to limit contact practices, the product suffered

I hate the NFL/Pats make season ticker holders pay for the scrimage games, its criminal, those games should all be sold to the public, with Season ticket holders with the OPTION to buy first

 

[Observer]

The division concept is weird also because the team that wins the division doesn't actually have to beat their division opponents, but rather needs to have a better record compared to their division opponents, without having identical schedules. Since the divisions are seeded by overall record rather than record within the division, the system would be better if they just had a round-robin within the conference and just picked the top four for quarter-finals.

 

[ChessToCheckers]

I really like the existing setup and schedule.

If I were to make any change, I'd modify the 4 out-of-conference games to be against the four out-of-conference teams with same division record.

For example, this year instead of Pats vs Seahawks, 49ers, Cardinals, Rams, it would be Pats vs Redskins, Cardinals, Vikings, Panthers.

I believe this tweak would tend to eliminate the crappy teams from National Broadcasts.

But again, I really like the existing setup and schedule.

 

[TinhWoodhead]

2008 had one team finish 11-5 and miss the playoffs....

we wouldnt have done anything w/o brady anyway