We are a month away from one of the most exciting times of the year. After you have exchanged presents with your family for Christmas and tossed back a few drinks to ring in another year, it will be time for The National Football League Playoffs to start. The only thing that is more exciting than the fast paced 16-game regular season in The NFL are the playoffs. There isn’t a best-of-seven series involved in The NFL’s postseason like we see in other sports which means that it is put up or shut up time as one game will decide each round. The NFL hasn’t expanded their playoff format since 1990 when the league went from 10 teams to 12 teams. In 2012 it is time for The NFL to expand to 14 teams.
In the current format the top two seeds in both The National and American Football Conferences receive a first-round bye. Since 2002 teams that have a first-round bye are 25-15 in their first playoff game, but the last two Super Bowl Champions in The Green Bay Packers and The New York Giants did not receive byes to open the playoffs.
By The NFL adding two more first-round games it would add even more excitement to the most popular sport in The United States. In the current format, NBC televises two Wild Card games on the first Saturday of the playoffs with FOX and CBS each televising one game on Sunday. With an extra game in the first round, we could see a tripleheader on both Saturday and Sunday with a game at 12:30 PM, 4PM, and at 8PM. Each network would then be able to televise one playoff game each day which would mean more money for everyone involved as The NFL is currently earning an estimated $3.1 billion in combined revenue from these three networks as well as ESPN.
Adding an extra postseason spot would bring even more interest to games in December as more teams would be playing meaningful games to end the season. Since 2002 there have been six teams who have won at least ten games in a season without reaching the playoffs. This was highlighted in 2008 by The New England Patriots. After going 16-0 in 2007, The Patriots were expected to once again contend for The Super Bowl until quarterback Tom Brady suffered a season-ending knee injury in Week 1 against The Kansas City Chiefs in 2008. The Patriots finished the regular season with a record of 11-5 but they were denied a playoff spot. In 2010, both The Giants and Tampa Bay Buccaneers finished the regular season with a record of 10-6, but both teams were at home for the postseason. Periodically we see one team in each conference that could do some damage in the postseason, but they are left out of the playoff party as was the case with these teams. At the same time some coaches who receive a bye would love to see there team continue to play as they would keep the momentum going.
Last season The Packers finished the regular season with a record of 15-1 and at times they appeared unstoppable. In the team’s 37-20 Divisional Round loss to The Giants, Green Bay was never able to get that rhythm that propelled them to 15 victories in the regular season.
We all now that NFL commissioner Roger “Show Me The Money” Goodell is all about making a profit so why not work out a deal with The NFL’s Players Association to expand the playoffs? In this new era of sports, teams are primarily judged by what they do in the playoffs. Adding an extra playoff berth might also save some jobs of head coaches in The NFL as well as coaches are regularly fired for not making the playoffs. Some football purist would contend that adding an extra playoff spot would water down the postseason, but if The NFL were worried about a quality product then they would not put second rate games on Thursday night during the season like they currently are. The NFL could take a cue from Major League Baseball who just added an extra spot in both The National and American Leagues for the playoffs and it was a tremendous success in it’s first season. After 22 years the time is now for The NFL to expand the playoffs.
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