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Would NFL playoff expansion suck, or be great?

By Dan Salem

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Love it or hate it, NFL Playoff expansion is coming. Should fans start to panic, or be excited for a new playoff era? Dan Salem and Todd Salem debate in today’s NFL TD Sports Debate. Two brothers from New York yell, scream and debate the NFL and sports.

TODD:

The NFL playoffs are going to expand to 14 teams. It won’t happen this season, but next season is in play. I’m torn on this topic.

On the one hand, change is scary; I hate change; why fix something if it ain’t broke? On the other hand, the NFL regular season is a thing of beauty because it requires teams to fight all year for a playoff berth. You don’t want that watered down.

Hmm…okay, well I guess I’m not torn on this at all. Expanded postseason is a bad idea!

You know how it was awesome fun to see the NFC wildcard teams battle through week 17 for the final spots with a 10-win Philadelphia team getting left home? Yeah, that would have been incredibly boring if seven squads made the playoffs.

You know how it was interesting to follow whether the Cardinals in 2013 would sneak into the playoff but got left home with 10 wins? Yeah, that would have been a non-story with seven playoff teams.

You know how the same thing happened to Chicago in 2012? Yeah…

For three straight years we’ve had interest through the regular season’s final week because playoff spots were limited. If we continue to expand it, suddenly the NFL turns into hockey and basketball where the best teams know they’re going to be playoff-bound and just manage players for the next round.

Feb 1, 2015; Glendale, AZ, USA; New England Patriots quarterback

Tom Brady

(12) in the huddle with teammates against the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX at University of Phoenix Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

We would also get many more under-.500 playoff teams at the same time as we water down the product. It’s a lose-lose!

The only positives to this proposal are off-field bologna: the league will make more money and coaches/staff can keep their jobs by hanging on playoff berths. Unless you’re excited about the possibility of some crappy 8-8 team winning the Super Bowl every three years because Cinderella is your favorite Disney movie, I don’t follow the logic.

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DAN:

NFL playoff expansion feels like a dirty word. But because it is inevitable, I’m going to embrace the change and dispel all your paranoid fears.

Fear number one; expanding the playoffs to fourteen teams will destroy the fight for final playoff spots we’ve seen over the last three seasons. Using last year as the example, you are correct that the final NFC playoff spot would have fallen to Philadelphia with zero competition. Yet you blatantly ignored the AFC for purposes of your argument.

The seventh and final playoff spot last season would have been a battle between as many as five teams, with the Houston Texans winning the berth. Houston, Kansas City, San Diego, Buffalo, and Miami all had a legitimate shot at the sixth spot over the final month and would have all gone head to head for an expanded third wildcard berth.

Having five more teams legitimately battling for the post season is huge for the NFL, for fans, and for the growth of football. We’ve witnessed first hand in Major League Baseball how the expanded playoffs has increased the importance of the final month of games. Sure, the top teams rested their players when their managers deemed it appropriate. But we already have this in the NFL.

Resting your players for the final few weeks is common sense, when the playoffs are already secured. But its a fun balancing act, as too much rest can kill momentum. This is a part of professional sports, so throw that fear away. It already exists and is unlikely to change.

I’d also like to kill your fear that having more teams make the playoffs will lead to fewer head coaches being fired. The notion that coaches who stunk up the locker room and performed poorly at their jobs will somehow be granted lenience because they qualified for a playoff spot is ridiculous. Excuse me, but didn’t the Broncos fire their head coach after finishing 12-4 because they sucked in the playoffs? Why yes, yes they did.

Jan 5, 2014; Green Bay, WI, USA; The NFC Wild Card Banner during the 2013 NFC wild card playoff football game at between the San Francisco 49ers and Green Bay Packers Lambeau Field. San Francisco won 23-20. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports

More teams with losing records will win wildcard berths. But a losing record is still a losing record. And coaches with losing records get fired. Sure, the Carolina Panthers won an awful division last year and managed to even win a playoff game. But when they faced the top competition in the divisional round, they got smoked.

Fear mongering is fun, especially in the off-season. But bad teams will remain bad, regardless of whether they win a wildcard berth. There will ultimately be a larger fight for the wildcard spots in both the NFC and AFC each season. Yet the top teams in each conference will get more rest as the playoffs begin, increasing the fight for top seeds as well.

Comparing an expanded NFL playoffs to the NBA and NHL is far-fetched. The regular seasons are night and day. The NFL playoffs are single elimination. The Super Bowl is king. Until the king has been overthrown, NFL playoff expansion is more roses than thorns.

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