NFL Talk: Expanding the Playoffs is Bad for the Game
By Reid Hanson
NFL fans know all too well how much more enjoyable the playoffs can be when your team is still playing. Then why would expanding the playoffs be such a poor idea?
The idea of expanding the playoffs has been broached once again. This time the question came during a meeting between Roger Goodell and both all of the Jacksonville Jaguars’ season ticket holders.
"“It works so well right now,” Roger Goodell said. “I think that what makes the NFL great is every game means so much. You don’t ever want to lose that. You don’t want to lose the fact that every regular season game is important. Only having 12 teams qualify, which is the smallest of any of the professional leagues by far, that’s a good thing for us.”"
It’s easy to see why fans and owners would be interested in an increased field in the playoffs. Fans obviously increase the chances of seeing their favorite team compete in the postseason and owners get to see the windfall of profits from selling one more game to fans.
"in the NFL, the best team does NOT always win."
But the players themselves and the integrity of the game may beg to differ.
NFL Players
The NFL players and fans are in an age where the physical repercussions of an NFL career is starting to take the spotlight. Whether you’re talking about CTI, chronic back problems, or permanently damaged knees, there are many reasons for players to be concerned about increasing their yearly workload.
Because of this, any expansion of the playoffs would have to be approved by the NFLPA and most likely need to carry with it extra compensation.
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NFL Integrity
Another reason to be weary of playoff expansion is the watering down of the game itself. Some people hate to hear this, but in the NFL, the best team does NOT always win. As it is typically the case in any single elimination tournament.
Were the 9-7 Super Bowl winning Giants really better than the 16-0 New England Patriots? Heck no. Not even close. The Giants barely even qualified for the postseason. Sure they got hot at the right time and produced some of the best (and luckiest) plays on their way to the title.
The truth is, they were the lesser team. Don’t get me wrong, they clearly won when it counted so they deserve the credit but that doesn’t mean we are forced to switch off reality. The reality is, it’s safe to say they would probably have lost that match-up 9 of 10 times.
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The 10-6 Super Bowl winning 2010 Green Bay Packers are another example of the best team not always winning. Like the Giants, they barely made the playoffs and needed help from other teams just to qualify. Yet, they also caught some breaks and got hot at just the right time. And they also upset teams that were otherwise “better” than they were.
Just last season we saw multiple examples that on any given Sunday, anyone can win. The Philadelphia Eagles upset the New England Patriots for goodness sakes. No one thinks the Eagles are actually better, they just caught the right breaks and made some big plays at the right times.
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None of this is to diminish what these teams accomplished, but rather this is an attempt to point out that in single elimination tournaments like the NFL Playoffs, upsets can happen and the better team can lose.
The truly great teams find ways of avoiding these big upsets, but no one is impervious to them 100% of the time. Expanding the playoffs only increases the likelihood of upsets like these. And while it’s fun to see an upset, it does cheapen the game to see the best team lose.
"“It will likely happen at some point,” Goodell said regarding the playoff expansion. “But we want to be really cautious because we really like the balance we have with the importance of the regular season and the postseason.”"
Expanded playoffs do seem like an inevitability in the NFL but more football isn’t necessarily a good thing.
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It’s all fun and games when a fluke play helps your team upset the favorite but when you’re the team who’s season is lost to a lesser-than, then you’ll be singing a different tune.
Part of the game? Sure. But let’s not make this rare occurrence more frequent than we must…