The NFL playoffs are staying the same … for now, at least. The Detroit Lions scrapped a proposal that would drastically alter how the playoffs were seeded ahead of a league vote Wednesday, according to multiple reports.
Detroit did not have enough support for the proposal, and opted to take it off the table before team owners voted on it.
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The proposal aimed to change how the NFL seeded the playoffs. If the Lions’ proposal was accepted, the teams with the best records would get the highest seeding in the playoffs. That’s a massive change over the current format, where division winners get the top-4 seeds in each conference. Wild-card teams are then seeded based on their records.
The Lions’ proposal sought to reward teams with better regular-season records. Under the current playoff-seeding system, a division winner with a 10-7 record would be seeded higher than a wild-card team that went 14-3. Despite having a better record, that wild-card team would have to go on the road for its first playoff game.
That’s exactly what happened last year, as the wild-card 14-3 Minnesota Vikings had to go on the road to play the division-winning 10-7 Los Angeles Rams in the first round of the playoffs. The Vikings lost that contest.
The Green Bay Packers would have faced a different road in the playoffs under the Lions’ proposal. Despite winning 11 games last season, the Packers were the No. 7 seed in the playoffs. The team had to go on the road to face the No. 2 seed Philadelphia Eagles in round one. Under the Lions’ format, the Packers would have been the No. 5 seed. The team still would have gone on the road for its first-round playoff game, but would have faced an easier opponent.
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While the Lions’ opted to scrap their proposal ahead of Wednesday’s vote, it’s possible the idea gets revived in the future. The proposal could draw more interest if the league adopts an 18-game schedule in the future, per Ian Rapoport. An 18-game schedule is not on the table Wednesday.
Team owners were expected to vote on the Lions’ playoff proposal and a proposal that would ban the tush push Wednesday. While the playoff-reseeding proposal is off the table, team owners are expected to move forward with the tush-push vote.
On Tuesday, team owners voted to approve a measure that will allow NFL players to take part in flag football at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
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