Expanded playoff must force NFL to rethink seeding as NFC North dominates

Green Bay could go 13-4 and still conceivably be the six seed, traveling to face a seven or even eight-loss division winner. It's past time to fix this problem.

Seven teams per conference never made sense, but the 2023 Green Bay Packers were glad the NFL decided to expand its playoffs. This expansion partly enabled them to become the youngest team ever to win a postseason game. A flawed, 9-8 team like the Packers would not have qualified for most of the league’s existence; they wouldn’t have won enough games. This year though, Green Bay has a different problem: Matt LaFleur’s team could win two, three, or even four more games and still only improve their playoff seeding by a single, solitary spot.

When the NFL went to seven teams, the history of the NFL said parity would persist even if the last team in the playoffs made the field worse overall. The Packers proved that in an ass-kicking the size of Texas in Dallas. Even the mediocre teams can beat the best teams on the right day.

But if the goal is to get the best teams in the playoffs and ultimately crown the best of the best, then divisions have to matter less than they currently do. Teams already play inequal schedules and while we aren’t going to use DVOA to determine playoff seeding any time soon, there’s no coherent reason to reward the NFC West or NFC South this year for fielding a group of truly craptastic teams.

Former Athletic writer and long-time number cruncher Ben Baldwin pointed out the NFC North stands 28-3 against the rest of the NFL, a fitting number after the Minnesota Vikings throttled the Atlanta Falcons (turn to your neighbor and explain that one if they don’t understand it).

Let’s take it a step further: those three losses belong to the 11-2 Philadelphia Eagles who sit atop the NFC East, the NFC South-leading Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the L.A. Rams who just won the game of the year against the team many believed to be the best in the AFC.

Sean McVay’s squad sit a game back of the Seattle Seahawks for first place in the NFC West.

That’s how good the NFC North is, yet the Vikings and Packers could each win 12+ games and have to go on the road in the first road. In fact, that’s the most likely scenario. ESPN’s FPI has Minnesota and Green Bay as the third and fourth-best teams in the NFC, but they are projected most likely to finish with the fifth and sixth seeds.

DVOA agrees, with the North checking in with the NFC's first, third, and sixth-best teams by their opponent-adjusted numbers. The Packers are No. 3 despite heading for a road playoff game in Seattle, which is the very site of their game this week.