As the NFL Playoffs start this weekend spare a thought for Arizona Cardinals fans. Their 8-8 season is hardly earth shattering but they were the seventh best team in the NFC but failed to capture one of the seven playoff places.
The reason is that the playoffs are made up of the four division winners plus three wild-cards featuring the next best teams. Washington were division winners with a losing season (7-9) but the divisional title is more valuable than the overall win-loss record.
Another benefit of being division winners is that Washington are seeded fourth (as the lowest divisional winner) rather than seventh as the worst team in the playoffs. This means facing a slightly easier playoff rival and possibly avoiding Green Bay in the next round.
So what would the playoffs look like if it was just the top seven teams in the conference who made it through, with no divisional winner seeding?
The diagram below shows the Wildcard games happening this weekend compared to an imaginary set of games based on divisional placings with no exception for divisional winner. Chicago and Los Angeles might be happy to get an easier game (based on seedings alone), while Tampa Bay fans may be disappointed to have lost the chance to play Washington.
But Washington’s stroke of luck is an unusual event, only four teams have ever made the playoffs with a losing record, and the last was Seattle in 2015. Keeping privileges for division winners ensures strong division rivalries which is what fans thrive on – even if you can’t make the playoffs you can at least save a season by beating your fiercest rivals.
So while it is fun imaging different playoffs scenarios, there is a trade off between postseason fairness and the passion of all fans across the whole season. This year’s playoffs are probably unfair for some, but it doesn’t make the overall system broken.
Whatever happens from here Washington are record breakers. They are the first team in the Super Bowl era to qualify for the postseason after going 2-7 in the first nine games. Of course, this this is unlikely to be remembered as some miracle comeback ready for the movies, but rather how Philadelphia rolled over in the last game of the season to protect their draft pick position.
NOTE: credit for the image at the top goes to the NFL for creating such cool graphics.
Sport.dat 