{"id":379815,"date":"2025-12-31T17:28:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T17:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/379815\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T17:28:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T17:28:07","slug":"playoff-seeding-is-expected-to-change-when-nfl-expands-to-18-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/379815\/","title":{"rendered":"Playoff seeding is expected to change when NFL expands to 18 games"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another year, another Week 18 game in which the winner will become the No. 1 seed and the loser will hit the road as a wild card against a team with a lesser record.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of last year\u2019s battle between the 14-2 Vikings and 14-2 Lions, Detroit proposed (at the urging of the league) that the teams be seeded regardless of division championship<\/a>. No more home game for the best of four bad teams who are assigned to a given division.<\/p>\n

The proposal never made it to a vote, because it would have failed. But it\u2019s widely believed the Commissioner wants it. And it\u2019s widely believed he\u2019ll keep pushing for it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also believed in some key circles that it will happen when the season expands to 18 games. <\/p>\n

The timeline for the inevitable addition of another regular-season game isn\u2019t known. But it\u2019s coming, by 2031 at the latest \u2014 unless the NFL Players Association successfully staves it off.<\/p>\n

For now, the current seeding could result in, for example, the 13-4 Seahawks visiting the 8-9 Panthers in the wild-card round. Yes, despite the five-game difference, the Seahawks would have to return to Carolina, where they won only three days ago, 27-10.<\/p>\n

In the AFC, the Ravens (at 9-8, if they win on Sunday night) could be hosting a 12-5 team the following weekend.<\/p>\n

Right, wrong, or otherwise, it\u2019s moving in that direction. In time. And while it will create important questions about scheduling equity (really, why play two games against each division rival?), the easy answer is it doesn\u2019t matter. <\/p>\n

The man whose signature is on every football wants it. Eventually, he\u2019ll likely get it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another year, another Week 18 game in which the winner will become the No. 1 seed and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-379815","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}