NFL Owners Meetings: Playoff Reseeding in the Works?

This week, NFL owners from all 32 teams will meet in Palm Beach, Florida to discuss the 2007 season and vote on several proposed rule changes.

One of the items on their agenda is a proposed change to the way playoff teams are seeded. Particularly in terms of possible home field advantage for wild card seeds.

Currently, NFL wild card teams never get home field advantage during the playoffs. Only teams that win their division are awarded home field advantage in at least the first round of the playoffs.

This week the NFL owners will debate and vote on a rule change that will allow wild card teams to gain have home field advantage if they have a better record than their division champion opponent.

Although this rule change has the backing of Commissioner Roger Goodell, it is unlikely to receive the 24 of 32 owners votes needed to approve any NFL rule change.

Proponents of the new reseeding idea will challenge that teams with better records should be rewarded with home field advantage.

Roger Goodell and the NFL will challenge that this rule change will promote more competitiveness in the league, particularly in December when teams that have clinched a division title tend to sit their starters.

Opponents of the new reseeding will say that this rule will hinder teams that happen to play in stronger divisions such as the NFC East or AFC South.

For example, it is very possible that a wild card team from the AFC East could have a better record than the winner of the AFC South, simply because the AFC East is such a weak division at the moment.

The team that won the AFC South Division would have achieved a lot more during the regular season by winning that tough division. A team that wins the AFC South would most likely be a better football team than a wild card team that comes out of the AFC East, even if their record does not reflect this.

It would be a great injustice if a team from the NFC East or AFC South battled division opponents all year and came out on top of one of the toughest divisions in football, only to lose home field advantage to a wild card team from a far weaker division.

Parity in the NFL is such that many division races come down to the last couple of weeks of the season as it is. It is somewhat rare that a team really runs away with a division title anymore.

It is highly unlikely that any owners from the NFC East, AFC South and other strong divisions will vote for this rule change.

But, this is something we should keep our eyes out for in the future as this rule change has the full backing of the league and Commissioner Roger Goodell.

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