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Originally Posted by Colts And Orioles
I believe that they ought to make a clause in regard to division winners getting to play on their homefield with a significantly worse record than their opponent. They should make it so that you have to be at least within 2 full games of the team that you are playing in order to maintain the homefield advantage ...... so a team that won their division with a record of 10-7 would still be able to host a playoff game against a Wildcard team that had a record of 12-5. BUT, if a team won their division with a record of 9-8 (or 9-7-1) was playing a Wildcard team that finished with a record of 12-5, then the Wildcard team would then host the playoff game.
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I agree with the sentiment, but I'd rather keep the arbitrarity out of it. It gets messy. Like how overtime now gives both team a possession unless you score a TD. And people say, "Well, why don't they both get a possession regardless?" And next it'll be, "Well, why don't they both get two possessions?" and so on.
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Originally Posted by IndyNorm
I like your idea, but I'd like to see the league take it a step further and seed the playoffs by record w/ division winner being the 1st tie breaker (or better yet 2nd tie breaker after head to head).
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Normally I'd say to leave the qualification seeding as they've always been (4 division champs + 3 WC)... and once you've got your field, simply seed them according to record. Keeps the division really meaningful. Division winner could also be part of the tie-breaker.
But yours is an interesting take. It doesn't make being a division winner meaningless due to tie-breakers... But I suppose the issue would be that theoretically a division winner could miss the playoffs outright. The '08 Chargers and the '10 Seahawks we mentioned both would've missed the playoffs even with under the current 7-team field. And maybe that's what they deserved.
It becomes a matter of meritocracy vs. marketing, and marketing would never omit an entire division's audience from the playoffs.