The Detroit Lions withdrew their proposal to alter playoff seeding before a vote was taken by owners in Minneapolis on Wednesday, but commissioner Roger Goodell expects the discussion to resume into the 2025 season.
Goodell said the proposal won’t be considered in its current form. However, there is traction for making adjustments to the current playoff seeding structure.
“On the reseeding, that is something that had gotten a lot of discussion in March,” Goodell said Wednesday. “There are different forms of reseeding, as you can imagine. What I wanted to look at and what we eventually got the discussion on, where is the ownership’s position on where they want us and the committees to evaluate. Is it no reseeding at all, some form of reseeding? After the first week, after the second week? What is it that would be of interest to them? And I think we got some direction on that and some timing issues on that, so that was helpful.”
The proposal called for seeding the playoff field based on record, thus eliminating the automatic home game for division winners regardless of regular-season record.
NFL owners were scheduled to vote on the Lions’ proposal first outlined in March on Wednesday. Instead, the team pulled the pitch from the table due to a lack of support, NFL Network reported, speculating the idea could be revisited should the league expand to an 18-game schedule.
Under the current format, four division winners in each conference are guaranteed a home playoff game. Wild-card entrants travel to play the division champions, which can yield a matchup between a home team with a record worse than the wild-card team.
Last season, for example, the 14-3 Vikings were forced to travel west to meet the 10-7 Rams in the wild-card round. Minnesota finished behind the Detroit Lions (15-2) in the NFC North, making the Vikings a wild card. Los Angeles won the NFC West. The Rams prevailed to advance.
In the postseason followed the 2023 season, the Eagles (11-6) finished second on the NFC East and as a wild card went on the road to play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (9-8) in the opening round.
The Lions had proposed only the division winner with the best record in each conference would play at home. The remaining playoff teams would be seeded by record with no regard to division standing.
–Field Level Media
