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At last week’s league meeting, NFL owners rejected a proposal to re-seed the postseason and give wild card teams the chance to host first-round playoff games.
The proposal failed because most owners felt it would cheapen the accomplishment of winning a division. But the motivation behind it — to make sure late-season games are important — remains a priority within the NFL.
Peter King of SI.com reports that one proposal the NFL might consider to ensure fewer meaningless Week 17 games is to schedule division games at the end of the season. That could involve a preponderance of games between teams in the same division in December, or possibly even nothing but division games in the last couple of weeks.
It’s not clear how much support such a proposal would have. Adding more division games at the end of the season would, of course, mean fewer division games earlier in the season, and there might be some concerns that such a proposal would make September and October less interesting.
But King says increasing the number of division games late in the year is something the league office very much wants to do.
April 9th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Re: “Peter King of SI.com reports that one proposal the NFL might consider to ensure fewer meaningless Week 17 games is to schedule division games at the end of the season.”
The worst tanking of this past year happened to be a “Division game”- Titans at Indy that everyone in America who follows NFL football watched in disbelief. Does King not remember that game?
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April 9th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
I like the idea…..
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April 9th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Wasn’t the Titans/Colts game a division game. It still is not going to stop team from mailing it in when they have a seed locked up.
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April 9th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
“and there might be some concerns that such a proposal would make September and October less interesting.”
I’m not sure what the concerns are, as a diehard Saints fan, I don’t care who they play (granted I want to see them wipe the floor more so with the NFC south teams), I ALWAYS want to see every game, and every other fan of football I know does too. Regardless of the matchup, I’m always glued to the tube. I don’t see that as a concern.
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April 9th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I like this idea. The last 3 games should all always be against your division rivals. That would not make the begining of the season any less interesting, but would always keep fans interested in at least knocking a division foe out of contention at the end, even if your team is out by week 8.
The chance to save the season and make a playoff run would be much more realistic even if one team is 5-8 and division leader is 8-5, they still have a chance to swap spots during the last 3 weeks.
I think they should also adopt some NBA competitve balance ideas like a draft lottery to discourage tanking it for bad teams in the last couple weeks.
The rookie pay scale should be the number one issue for NFL players. This would put the money where it should be going a little better and reduce non need based drafting for money reasons. They need to keep the payroll basement as well as cap to keep vets from being replaced early, but this would really help keep the entire 17 week schedule relavent.
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April 9th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
I’m not sure I believe the concern that September and October become less interesting. You don’t need to extra nastiness of a division rivalry early in the season; you watch because like everyone else you have hope that this might be The Year for your team (there’s plenty of recent examples of worst-to-firt to choose from here). And even if it did reduce the interest in the early months somewhat, that is more than made up for by the TOTAL worthlessness of a late-season game in which there’s nothing to be decided.
It’s not just the “rivalry” spice of a late-season division game that make this interesting. Division games are major playoff-relevant affairs, since their results create effectively more movement in the standings charts and because they are used for tiebreak scenarios. A head-to-head win over a division opponent can essentially give you an extra 1-game advantage in the standings. Pushing those till later simply increases the likelihood that the late season games “matter”, and does not reduce the impact of the early season ones. Seems like a good deal.
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April 9th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
great idea. there is so much buzz at the beginning of the season, this would surley not hurt the ratings much less interest!! late season divisional games would deffinetly be a great thing and would eliminate the “resting” of players which by the way, did not work out very well last year for any one that did rest their starters (i.e. dallas,san deigo, etc.)
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April 9th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
I think it would be a great idea and fail to see how it would lower the level of interest in the early ongoing of September and October. At that stage in the season teams are simply jockeying for position within their division and conference, not making a playoff push. Whether you’re getting beat on or doing the beating on division opponents, by week six it has little significance when you’re only (4-2). I’d prefer to see two to three division games within the last month. You’d have an increased number of teams within divisions playing spoiler and (assuming their relatively close in the standings) making their final push for the division title and playoff position.
Being a birds can i can attest, during the final four games of the 2006 season the eagles went on a three game road swing, Washington, New York, and Dallas. Winning all three they ended up securing their spot in the post-season, locking up first place in their division, and acquiring a home game. All while providing some of the most exciting football i have ever seen.
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April 9th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
That’s not a bad idea. I wouldn’t mind seeing Weeks 1, 2, 3 and 4 used for divisional game. 4 weeks because the NFL might want to schedule some prime-time matchups in week 1 that aren’t divisional games.
And then weeks 15, 16 and 17 nothing but divisional games as well. Meet them at the beginning of the year, play a bunch of common opponents, and then meet them at the end of the year to decide the division.
But even then, week 17 might schedule a 13-2 team against a 4-11 team.
Only until the NFL implements a “Flex Week 15 through 17″ schedule, where not only can you move the time of day, but you can move the game to a different week in order to get the most competitive week 17 matchups possible.
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April 9th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
More division games at the end, more geographical/historical/whatever-ical rivalry games early. Problem solved.
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April 9th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
I think this is an interesting proposal that may create more interest for teams needing to win their division BUT as last years Colts-Titans game showed teams that clinch can still lay down & rest their starters when the division has been clinched. Everyone watches the Colts lay down & rest their starters at the end of the season,which the NY Giants showed may not be the best idea.
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April 9th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
At this point why dont we just pull names out of a hat every Tuesday morning to see who everyone is going to play, or better yet, ESPN and the NFLN can bid for the rights to broadcast the drawing live each Tuesday night…
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April 9th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Well, let see; divisional teams play each other twice. That means they could play each other in the fall and once in December. Nah, that makes too much sense. I hope the higher ups can figure that one out. And they call me blue collar……
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April 9th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Tampa, who took December off pretty much, had 3 division games in December last season (@ New Orleans, Atlanta, and Carolina), so I’m not convinced this would help much.
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April 9th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Gee what genius thought of this??? it should have been done a long time ago!!! it only makes sense for division supremacy!!! plus it makes for better programming!!! GO FINS!!!
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April 9th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
I think this is a great idea….they could just schedule a team to play the other three in their division the last three weeks of the season…then they can still have division games earlier in the season–though I don’t think they need them. Everyone has hope in the early season so people will watch. It’s the meaningless games at the end that are the issue.
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April 9th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
There are six division games within a four month regular season. Have one in September, two in October, one in November, and two in December. For the seasons in which there is only one Divisional game, insert one of the top games to compensate. For example, if the Pats have one divisional game in November then have them play a rival like the Colts in that month too.
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April 9th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
what genius thought of this??? it should’ve been done from the beginning!!! it makes for better programming & divison supremacy!!! it only makes sense!!!
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April 9th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Pffffft….Indy & ten was a division game last season and looke dhow that worked out
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April 9th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
one more time…since none of my post see the light of day…the colts and titans was a division game last season and look how that worked
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April 9th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
I think the league only needs to look at the structure of the NHL season to see the importance of divisional games. While the season is considerably longer, many teams last 5 games of the season were divisional and the results of those games shook the standings quite a bit. While the NFL doesn’t have as much flexibility perhaps making the last 3 games of the season divisional would emphasize the importance of them.
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April 9th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Fantastic idea that should have been done years ago.
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April 9th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Hmm…ya know, I think that may be a good idea. What a lead up to the playoffs that would be if the last 6 games of the season were against your division rivals! Come to think of it, the NCAA basketball season’s basically set up that way. I don’t know if any team could get through that kinda gauntlet unscathed.
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April 9th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
So then we’d have the preseason, then the lame 1/2 season where fans could revel (wallow?) in interdivision games like Detroit vs. Miami, and only until after Len Pastabelly has ingested the entire Thanksgiving turducken do we get to the “good” part of the season?
No thanks!
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April 9th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
This makes perfect sense, I’ve been saying this would be a good idea for years now. You get to see the teams in intense divisional play when they’ve forged their identities for the season, and rounded into shape. They could even do two rounds, maybe weeks 4-6 could be the first round of divisional play, and then 14-16 could be the 2nd round. I absolutely love this idea. It works great for the NCAA
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