So, Mike Tomlin is a "division purist."
Steelers HC Mike Tomlin was asked about the proposal to seed the playoffs based solely off record: "I'm a division purist. I love the rivalries that is [sic] division play. I love the structure of our scheduling that highlights it. I think the division winners should get a home playoff game."
But if Tomlin feels this way, then why isn't he out there clamoring for second-place teams to make the playoffs over third-place teams for wild-card berths if they finish with the same record?
Isn't it totally lame to play 17 games — and soon, very likely, 18 games — just to eliminate one team from a division?
Since a second wild-card berth was added to each conference in 1978 (it became three in 1990, only to be cut back to two in 2002, then to revert to three again in 2021), there have been 13 instances in which a second-place team was kept out of the playoffs when a third-place team in the same conference that had the same record made it (in 1994 the fourth-place Vikings got in while the second-place Giants did not; both teams were 9-7).
Didn't Dale Earnhardt, Sr. say — in ESPN's 2004 movie 3": The Dale Earnhardt Story — that second place is the first loser? So if second place is the first loser, then what's third place?
This is why the NFL needs to increase the number of meetings between division rivals, from two to three, the way some such teams played in the first four years of the league's "division era" (which began in 1933) and the way some CFL teams still do every year now. With 18 intradivision games instead of only 12, imbalances between divisions will be far less noticeable, making it less likely for a team to have finished with a better record than a team that finished higher in another division, as we saw last season in the NFC, which led the Lions to propose a "straight seeding" model which never had a chance to pass, even though college football approved essentially the same proposal as Detroit's last week.
Of course, an 18th game will need to be added to the regular season to make this scheme work — and under it, every team in the same division would play 17 out of 18 games against common opponents (in the pre-merger NFL of 1967, 1968, and 1969, all four teams from the same division played 14 out of 14 games against common opponents!).
And not for nothing, but if this proposed change is made, it will put that much pressure on both the owners and the NFLPA to go to an 18-game regular-season schedule — which is what everyone knows is going to happen sooner or later.
If the idea is to make division finish paramount, then shouldn't it be made as difficult as possible for a team that finishes third in their division to make the playoffs? Since 1978, 34 third-place teams — and three fourth-place teams — have managed to qualify for post-season play; but since all three of the latter did so prior to 2002, the NFL has been spared the embarrassment of a last-place team making its playoffs, which happened to the NBA in 2022-23 when the Lakers, who finished in the Pacific Division cellar, nonetheless received an invite to the league's every-man-a-king playoffs.
Of course, the change in overtime was approved by the owners in March, guaranteeing both teams at least one possession in overtime, while keeping the extra period at 10 minutes, is certain to result in half a dozen games, give or take a game or two, ending in a tie every year — and from 1970 through 1973 (overtime in the regular season was introduced in 1974), not a single team missed the playoffs on tiebreakers, either making the playoffs by a half-game or missing by a half-game.
Making division finish; i.e., second over third, the first tiebreaker would simplify matters even further (the CFL also does this: If the fourth-place team from one division finishes with an outright better record than the third-place team from the other division, the former replaces the latter in the playoffs; but it must be an outright better record — a tie is no good).
Mike Tomlin is naturally entitled to his opinion — but people are equally entitled to call him out for hypocrisy when he spouts it, even if he does it tacitly.
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