In Minneapolis next week, NFL owners will have a chance to make the biggest change to postseason seeding in decades—with the Lions’ proposal to reconfigure the system listed as Bylaw Proposal No. 4 on the docket to be voted on.
Detroit’s proposal would be for the four division champions and three wild cards in each conference to make the playoffs. Those seven teams would then be seeded strictly by record, rather than assigning the top seeds to the division winners (which is how it’s been done since the merger), with the wild cards to follow. If teams have the same record, being a division champion would be the first tiebreaker—regardless of head-to-head record.
Detroit’s proposal in March called for the teams then to be reseeded after the first round.
Commissioner Roger Goodell conducted an unofficial vote on the idea in March, but only a handful of teams were ready to approve the proposal. However, there was also new logic to the notion teams were considering, prompting Goodell to table an official vote until May.
That logic is right there in the NFL’s rules proposal memo that went to clubs this week. The reason, in Detroit’s proposal, reads: Competitive equity. Provides excitement and competition in late-season games. Rewards the best-performing teams from the regular season.
The “provides excitement and competition” portion is key for the NFL, which has become increasingly concerned about teams resting players in Weeks 17 and 18 in preparation for the playoffs, with seeding locked up or at least narrowed down. The NFL analytics team showed owners a slide at the March meetings that explained how an “open seeding” system, like the one Detroit proposed, would make late games more relevant.
From that slide …
• In the current system, the Houston Texans went into Week 18 locked into the fourth seed. In the adjusted system, seed Nos. 4, 5, 6 or 7 would’ve been possibilities at that point.
• The Los Angeles Rams went into Week 18 knowing they’d be Nos. 3 or 4 in the NFC. In the adjusted system, they could’ve been Nos. 4, 5, 6 or 7.
• The Philadelphia Eagles went into Week 18 set as the No. 2 seed. In the adjusted system, they could’ve fallen to No. 3 with a loss.
All three of those teams rested starters in Week 18 last year and wound up losing those games—then won in the first round in the playoffs, to some degree rewarding that strategy.
Of course, in the eyes of the league office, that devalues some pieces of real estate in the high-rent neighborhood of NFL broadcasting, which is a motivator to try to turn around that trend. It also stands to reason that the above strategies deployed by DeMeco Ryans, Sean McVay and Nick Sirianni would only become more prevalent if and when the NFL goes to an 18-game schedule that would put more of a premium on having players fresh in January.
The other big rules proposal on the books for Minneapolis involved the Eagles’ famed push play. Interestingly enough, per the memo distributed to the clubs this week, language in the proposal is identical to the language in the Packers’ proposal from March.
The proposal says an offensive player can’t “immediately at the snap, push or throw his body against a teammate, who was lined up directly behind the snapper and received the snap, to aid him in an attempt to gain yardage.” Coaches asked for more clarity with the original writing of the rule, at the meetings in March.
New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel asked whether the quarterback could be pushed behind the guard. Los Angeles Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh asked whether the guards could be pushed by extra linemen on the field to create a similar effect to the quarterback being pushed.
Those weren’t addressed here.
In March, competition committee chair Rich McKay raised the point that the 2004 rule change, which repealed a blanket ban on pushing or pulling a teammate, happened because of a gray area on downfield blocks—not because of anything relating to the Eagles’ strategy.
He then asked everyone to take a closer look at the 2004 language. But as it stands right now, the Packers’ proposal from March remains unchanged. It could change, of course, at the meeting next week if Goodell sees momentum for a ban that the league office is clearly looking to get passed.
Also on the docket are tweaks to the kickoff rule—with the main one allowing for teams to declare for and run onside kicks at any point in a game, rather than just the fourth quarter—and the previously-reported allowance for NFL players to compete in flag football at the 2028 Olympics.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as NFL Owners Set to Vote on Major Change to Playoff Seeding, Tush Push Ban.
