The 11-5 Patriots were jobbed this season
How the hell does a team finish 11-5 but not make the playoffs? If you thought the 2007 Cleveland Browns (who finished 10-6) got screwed last year, then what happened to the New England Patriots this season is a flat out ludicrous.
This isn’t to take anything away from the Miami Dolphins, because they earned and deserved their AFC East crown. To go from 1-15 a year ago to 11-5 is remarkable and they won the division the hard way – on the road against an opponent in a must-win situation itself.
But when you have a San Diego Chargers team that could win their division at 8-8 (the Chargers are currently beating the Broncos 17-6 on SNF) and a Patriots squad completely miss the playoffs at 11-5, there’s something wrong.
All of this is a moot point because there’s not much the NFL can do about this situation. It’s not like the league pulled a fast one on the Patriots – this format has been in place since the NFL re-aligned the divisions in 2002. It’s just New England’s luck of the draw that they wound up in a great division, while the Chargers benefited from played the crap of the AFC twice a year.
But maybe it’s time for the NFL to at least take a look at the current system and see if it’s still the best way to go about things. I know the league has toyed with the idea of giving wild card teams with better records than division winners home field advantage, but maybe the NFL should at least consider awarding the top six playoff seeds in each conference to the teams with the top six records.
Thoughts? I realize not many people are going to feel bad for the Patriots, but what if it were your team that finished 11-5, yet didn’t make the playoffs? How would you feel? Or is it hard to look past the thought that this is just sweet justice for a team caught cheating?
What are the supposed benefits of the current layout? As a Packer fan, I like the regional aspect of the NFC North Division competition, but that’s about the only thing I can think of.
History and rivalries maybe?
I don’t know that I’d be really bummed out to go to 4 larger divisions rather than 8 small ones, and that would certainly make it less likely for an 11-5 team to miss out while an 8-8 team gets to dance.
I guess if my team was 11-5 and missed out on the playoffs while an 8-8 got in, I would probably feel like my team should have won another game.
Seems like there is 1-2 teams every year that get “screwed”. Welcome to the NFL. Not sure why they would suddenly look into changing it this year…
“How the hell does a team finish 11-5 but not make the playoffs?”
Karma, baby!
Seriously, this one goes out to all of those BCS apologists that claim that the NFL regular season doesn’t matter. Sure it does. Here’s your proof.
I’m not a Pats fan but that is BS! But at least the Chargers deserve it more than Denver would have. Do we need to go to a seeding like the NHL or NBA?
One objective argument is that the Pats were only 1-4 against teams that made the playoffs – including a loss to the Chargers.
I wonder if a system not unlike Baseball in the ’70s and ’80s will work: Have only TWO divisions in each conference with four wild-cards available; and also that winning your division guarantees a first-round bye which would make the first round of the playoffs TRULY WILD CARD PLAYOFFS. In a 16-game season, each team would play another in their division once (7 games), plus 4 games in the other division of the same conference plus 4 games in the other division of the other conference; the 16th game would rotate on a 7-year cycle within the division (it would be on the road if the first game was at home; this format would also break most head-to-head playoff tiebreakers.
This is how I would align the 32 teams into two divisions in each conferences of 8 teams each: (This would make third place sound good as it would usually be a playoff spot as well:)
AFC EAST AFC WEST
New England Patriots Cincinnati Bengals
New York Jets Tennessee Titans
Buffalo Bills Houston Texans
Pittsburgh Steelers Indianapolis Colts
Baltimore Ravens Denver Broncos
Jacksonville Jaguars Oakland Raiders
Miami Dolphins Kansas City Chiefs
Cleveland Browns San Diego Chargers
NFC EAST NFC WEST
New York Giants Dallas Cowboys
Philadelphia Eagles Minnesota Vikings
Washington Redskins Green Bay Packers
Carolina Panthers New Orleans Saints
Atlanta Falcons Arizona Cardinals
Tampa Bay Buccaneers St. Louis Rams
Detroit Lions San Francisco 49ers
Chicago Bears Seattle Seahawks