The NFL is too good to be embracing mediocrity.
The NFC South is on pace to have a division winner with a losing record for the second consecutive season, with the 3-5 Carolina Panthers
leading the New Orleans Saints (3-5), Tampa Bay Buccaneers (3-6) and Atlanta Falcons (3-6). If it happens, it will be the fourth time in the last seven seasons the NFL has had a division winner finish below .500, getting not only a playoff spot but a wild-card game at home.It's a bad look, especially when the NFL has better options.
Home playoff games could go to the teams with the best records, as the Detroit Lions wisely proposed in 2025. Better yet, the NFL could follow the NBA’s lead and adopt a playoff format that rewards the best teams. Period.
No more charity
for division winners. No more rewarding bad teams simply because they happen to be the best of the worst. No more punishing good teams because their divisions are meat grinders. (We see you NFC North, where all four teams are three games above .500 or better.)
Seed the teams by win-loss records, divisions be damned. Award playoff berths, and home games, accordingly.
“We're trying to take care of ourselves. We're not worried about any other team in our division right now,” Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles said Sunday, Nov. 8, after his team rallied to tie the game with just under 3 minutes left only to allow the Bears to march 49 yards and kick the game-winning field goal as time expired.
“We know if we take care of us, we're going to be fine.”
But shouldn’t the NFL want better than fine?
Save NFL's bad games for the regular season
It’s bad enough we have to watch terrible games during the regular season. Like the dog of a game Sunday, Nov. 15, that is the 1-7 Miami Dolphins against the 2-7 Indianapolis Colts. Or that ever-popular clash of the Panthers and Saints on the same day. Or, worse, all four NFC South teams going head-to-head in Week 18.
We shouldn’t have to endure dreck in the playoffs, too. Especially when it means a better team is going to be on the sidelines because of some misguided attempt at fairness.
Take last year. The Panthers finished at 8-9. But because they won the NFC South, they made the playoffs while two teams with winning records, the Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings, had to watch the postseason from their couches.
And for what? The Panthers lost to the Los Angeles Rams in the wild-card game, giving up a fourth-quarter lead twice. At home.
Of the five teams that won their divisions with losing records, only two have won their wild-card games. Both then lost in the divisional round.
The last three teams to make the playoffs with losing records have all gone out in the wild-card game, and Carolina’s 34-31 loss to Los Angeles was the closest margin.
The NFL prizes parity, with good reason. For 35-plus years, at least four teams have made the playoffs after missing them the previous season. The Kansas City Chiefs are the only team to repeat as Super Bowl champions in the last 20 years, and one of only three teams to make the Super Bowl in consecutive years.
That means every team begins the year with hope, with legitimate reason to think this year might be different.
Except for the New York Jets. They’re just lucky U.S. leagues don't do relegation.
But parity should not equate to charity, and the NFL is devaluing the regular season with its current playoff format. The playoffs should be reserved for the teams that earned their way in, not backed in on a technicality. At the very least, home playoff games should be reserved for the teams with the best records.
The NFL's league office was in favor of Detroit’s proposal, but the Lions wound up pulling it before it came to a vote. Probably because owners know their teams could easily be the best of a bad division one day, too.
But the NFL needs to revisit the issue. A playoff berth is too important, a home playoff game too valuable, to be downgraded into participation trophies.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Abysmal NFC South keep proving it's time to fix NFL playoffs | Opinion
