The NFL’s bogus playoff seeding system penalizes the more deserving

The injustice of the NFL’s playoff seeding system rears its ugly head once again

Now that we know how the 2024 NFL playoffs are seeded from top to bottom, it’s time once again to complain about the league’s ugly secret: Its system for awarding playoff position, and thus which teams will have postseason games at home or on the road, is seriously flawed.

The primary culprit is the league’s insistence that every division winner gets at least one home game. That would be somewhat equitable if every division winner was above average, but the process of elimination tells us a different story. Since 2010 alone, there have been three division winners with losing records: The 2010 Seattle Seahawks (NFC West, 7-9), the 2014 Carolina Panthers (NFC South, 7-8-1), and the 2020 Washington Football Team (NFC East, 7-9). All three of those teams got home playoff games against superior opponents from a record respective – all in the wild-card round. The Seahawks beat the 11-5 New Orleans Saints 41-36, the Panthers beat the 11-5 Arizona Cardinals, and the Football Team lost to the 11-5 Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

This season, the major issues are in the NFC once again. The 12-5 six-seed Washington Commanders will travel to play the 10-7 three-seed Buccaneers, because the Bucs won an NFC South with a .412 winning percentage (28-40 overall), and the Commanders finished second to the 14-3 Philadelphia Eagles in an NFC East with a .529 winning percentage (36-32).

Even more ridiculous is the fact that the 10-7 Los Angeles Rams, winner of an NFC West that sports a .500 winning percentage (34-34), will host the 14-3 Minnesota Vikings, who finished second in the NFC North after the final game of the regular season – an NFC North with a winning percentage of 662 (45-23, and three teams with at least 11 wins).

This should not stand, and the solution is simple. Division wins should be utterly meaningless when it comes to playoff positioning, especially when there have been so many examples of said division winners just beating up on the lost and forlorn in their own general area. If you win a division with a losing record, good for you. You’re staying home, and the more deserving teams who have to eke out wins in stronger divisions take the day.

As to that Lions-Vikings game, which ended 31-9 in Detroit’s favor, it was far more of a defensive battle than anybody expected, at least for the first three quarters. Both teams came into this contest with high-quality defenses, though the Lions have suffered through a ghastly number of injuries on that side of the ball in the second half of the season.

Many observers thought that the winner of this game would be the winner of the battle between Lions quarterback Jared Goff, and Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores’ blitz packages. In Detroit’s 31-29 Week 7 win over Minnesota, Flores blitzed Goff ceaselessly, and Goff ripped those blitzes to bits. The Vikings were a bit more on point against Goff this time around, but the real story was the pressure packages and tight coverage Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn threw at Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold, and how Darnold was affected by them.

The killer for the VIkings could well have been two drives in the second quarter in which Darnold missed on six straight passes from inside the Detroit 10-yard line – three straight on the drive that began with 11:01 left in the second quarter from the Detroit three yard line, and three more from the Detroit seven-yard line with 6:55 left in the second quarter from the Detroit seven-yard line. Four of those passes were in the general vicinity of Justin Jefferson, one of the NFL’s best receivers, and the Vikings got a total of three points out of those two drives.

That malaise continued into the second half. Darnold was more jumpy and uncomfortable than he’s been all season long, and the red zone was his Kryptonite. Coming into this game, Darnold was stellar from the opposing 10-yard line and in, with 30 completions on 39 attempts for 147 yards, 20 touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 110.8. But in this game, and against this defense, Darnold looked far more like the iffy, inconsistent quarterback who was “seeing ghosts” with the New York Jets back in 2019. The Vikings were 0-for-4 on drives in the red zone, 0-3 when in goal-to-go situations, and 0-for-3 on fourth-down conversions.

Darnold has been a wonderful quarterback for most of this season under the guidance of Vikings head coach and offensive play-caller Kevin O’Connell. And it’s not as if the Lions showed any kind of “blueprint” to stop him – most quarterbacks are going to be subpar when pressured ceaselessly with hyper-aggressive coverage to contend with. But the results of this game could alter Minnesota’s reliance on Darnold as the team’s epicenter on that side of the ball, and maybe it should … at least, until the ghosts go away again.

MVP of the week

Jahmyr Gibbs, RB, Detroit Lions. The reason the Lions-Vikings game was a defensive battle only through the first three quarters was that Gibbs, Detroit’s nonpareil running back, took over in the fourth quarter. Overall, Gibbs ran 23 times for 139 yards and three touchdowns, adding five catches on five targets for 31 yards and another score. That raised his touchdown total to 20 for the regular season, which makes him the league leader.

Gibbs’ first fourth-quarter run was a 13-yard touchdown, His second was a 47-yard scamper, and things just snowballed from there. He scored the final three touchdowns from either team, turning a 10-9 nail-biter in Detroit’s favor to a laugher in the end.

A lot of people pilloried the Lions when they selected GIbbs with the 12th overall pick in the 2023 draft – after all, you’re not supposed to draft running backs that high when “running backs don’t matter.” But executive vice president and general manager Brad Holmes responded at the time that Gibbs wasn’t just a running back – he was an offensive weapon, and that was how he was going to be utilized.

It’s impossible to argue that point now.

Video of the week

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers had already clinched the NFC South, and the four-seed in the NFC playoffs, by dint of their 27-19 win over the New Orleans Saints. But there was one more bit of business for the Bucs to address before they left the field. With 36 seconds left in the game, receiver Mike Evans was five yards short of his 11th straight 1,000-yard season. Were Evans to hit that mark, he would be the only receiver in pro football history to do so in each of his first 11 seasons, and he would tie Jerry Rice for the most 1,000-yard seasons in a career.

So when the Bucs got the ball back after an unsuccessful fourth-down attempt by the Saints, Tampa Bay quarterback Baker Mayfield was not going to kneel in a victory formation; he was going to get his man his record. Which he did, on this quick pass for nine yards.

If you want to know how much that mark meant to Evans and the rest of the organization, check out the team-wide post-catch celebration, which went on approximately as long as your average John Bonham drum solo.

Evans is a no-doubt future Hall of Famer, but his ascent to 1,000 yards was no slam-dunk this time around: he missed three weeks in the middle of the season with a hamstring injury, and gutted it out as the season progressed with hamstring and calf maladies.

Evans also got himself a $3m bonus for cracking 1,000 yards on the season, but there are times when the meaning of a thing matters more than the finances therein, and this appears to be one such instance.

Stat of the week

1,921. That’s how many yards Baltimore Ravens running back Derrick Henry gained on the ground in the 2024 regular season, which is the most by any back who didn’t win the rushing title. That title goes to Saquon Barkley of the Philadelphia Eagles, who became the ninth back in pro football history to run for over 2,000 yards (2,005 on 345 carries) despite sitting out the final game of the season against the New York Giants in order to prepare for the postseason.

Henry wasn’t going out like that. In Baltimore’s regular-season finale against the Cleveland Browns, Henry ran the ball 20 times for 138 yards and two touchdowns.

And it’s not as if Henry is unfamiliar with high seasonal rushing totals. He went over the 2,000-yard mark himself in 2020 with 2,027, and now, with his 2024 total, he is the only back in history to have two seasons with more than 1,900 yards on the ground.

It may be a while before the NFL has another running back who’s a relative certainty to make the Pro Football Hall of Fame, so we should enjoy Henry’s remarkable career as long as it goes. He’s been the league’s stalwart at the position as the importance of running backs in general has waxed and waned.

Elsewhere around the league

• Quarterback Jayden Daniels of the Commanders has turned the fortunes of his team around completely (seeding unfairness notwithstanding), and he should be the default Offensive Rookie of the Year. But let’s not ignore another rookie quarterback who has defined himself as a franchise guy. Bo Nix, the former Oregon star who was selected by the Denver Broncos with the 12th overall pick in the 2024 draft, finished off his first NFL regular season with a masterful performance against the Kansas City Chiefs that put the 10-7 Broncos in the postseason for the first time since the 2015 season, when they won Super Bowl 50 with Peyton Manning as their quarterback. The post-Manning landscape had been a horror show for the Broncos, concluding with the Russell Wilson trade that was one of the worst deals in recent history.

Nix was a different cat from the start. He played for different offensive coordinators in every one of his five seasons at Auburn and Oregon, and he had the mental wherewithal to handle head coach Sean Payton’s playbook, one of the NFL’s most voluminous and complex. Yes, the Chiefs were resting a lot of their starters because they had nothing to play for as the AFC”s one-seed, but Nix still had to get it done, and he did. The rookie completed 26 of 29 passes for 321 yards, four touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 152.4.

Nix has proven to have the smarts, accuracy, velocity, and mobility to succeed in the NFL. Now, he gets to see how that will look in the postseason.

• The Carolina Panthers finished the 2024 season with a 5-12 record. Hardly what anybody in the building would have preferred, but it represents a major step forward in one way. Bryce Young, the first overall pick in the 2023 draft, now looks like a completely different quarterback than he did in his rookie campaign, or through the first few weeks of the 2024 season. Young was benched in favor of veteran Andy Dalton in Week 3 this year, and he didn’t return to action as a starter until Week 8. Since that return, however, Young has been a revelation in every way – far more comfortable and confident in and out of the pocket, throwing the ball to all levels of the field, and whether he’s pressured or not.

That process amplified itself in Carolina’s 44-38 overtime win over the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday. Young completed 25 of 34 passes for 251 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 123.5. Add in Young’s five rushing attempts for 24 yards and two touchdowns, and this was a true franchise quarterback performance from a guy who looked like an epic bust not so long ago.

The Panthers have a way to go with their roster development before they’re true contenders, but they appear to have the premier position taken care of, and as Panthers head coach Dave Canales said post-game, that eases a lot of the weight on a personnel staff.

• Another team with a lot of roster holes to fill – but not at the quarterback position – is the New England Patriots. And now, the Pats have to find themselves a new head coach, because they fired Jerod Mayo after their 23-16 win over the Buffalo Bills’ backups – a win that finalized New England’s 4-13 record in Mayo’s first season as Bill Belichick’s replacement.

Third overall pick Drake Maye had very little help from his receivers, his run game, or his offensive line, but he still managed to complete 225 of 337 passes for 2,276 yards, 15 touchdowns, 10 interceptions, and a passer rating of 88.3. Maye didn’t play in the season finale, but sixth-round rookie Joe Milton did, and Milton completed 22 of 29 passes for 241 yards, a touchdown, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 111.4.

Both Maye and Milton are athletic marvels with tremendous arm strength and all kinds of mobility, so New England’s head coach will have something to build around.

• There are times when one wonders why teams that have absolutely nothing to play for at the end of the season don’t empty out the weirdest parts of their playbooks just to see what kinds of misdirection and trickeration might work. The general failure rate of such exploits could be the primary reason. Coaches tend to be a conservative lot for the most part, and nobody likes to be embarrassed. That said, a number of teams already eliminated from the postseason did their level best to keep us entertained, with the usual middling results.

The first misdirection attempt came from the Chicago Bears in their 24-22 win over the Green Bay Packers, and it was a doozy in a good way. With 6:34 left in the first quarter, Chicago cornerback Josh Blackwell took a Daniel Whelan punt at his own six-yard line, and returned it 94 yards for a touchdown.

The interesting wrinkle here is that receiver DJ Moore was also in position to return the punt on the other side of the field, faked the return, fooled the Packers’ return team, and that set things up for the touchdown.

This was reminiscent of a play the Bears ran on 25 September 2011, also against the Packers. In this instance, Hall of Fame return man Devin Hester was the decoy, and that allowed receiver Johnny Knox to return Tim Masthay’s punt 89 yards for a touchdown … which was negated by a holding penalty on defensive back Corey Graham.

That was an outstanding example of trickeration, though the Bears got a bit greedy with the concept with 11:13 left in the third quarter. Quarterback Caleb Williams pitched the ball to receiver Keenan Allen, who then threw the ball right to Packers safety Xavier McKinney, who had his eighth interception of the season.

The Carolina Panthers also got tricky in their 44-38 overtime win over the Atlanta Falcons. With 9:10 left in the first quarter, quarterback Bryce Young flipped the ball to receiver Jalen Coker, who hit running back Miles Sanders for a 19-yard gain.

And it should be canon that the Aaron Rodgers-led New York Jets should never try a trick play. Not when they can’t even get their pre-game team flag presentation right. This disaster happened with 11:03 left in the first quarter, and the back-and-forth with receiver Davante Adams, brought to New York because he’s one of Rodgers’ best buddies, went nowhere.

There was also this misbegotten Wildcat attempt halfway through the third quarter, as if to prove the point.

Also in the afternoon slate, with 2:33 left in the first quarter of the game between the Arizona Cardinals and the San Francisco 49ers, Arizona running back DeeJay Dallas took a direct snap on what looked to be a punt, and rumbled for a 22-yard gain. The 49ers’ misbegotten special teams, which ranked 31st in DVOA (opponent-adjusted efficiency) coming into this game, had no answer.

So, in a general sense, there was more skullduggery than one would expect in a usual week where everybody had something to play for. Which is as it should be.