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The original was posted on /r/nfl by /u/Nudes_Are_Food on 2025-01-03 17:49:34+00:00.
There’s been a lot of discussion on whether winning a division should guarantee you a home playoff game. The argument usually made to keep the current format centers around keeping division rivalries alive, but I think the more underlooked point is fairness in who you play.
Unlike the NBA or the MLB, football is too physically demanding to play all 32 teams, and instead, the NFL sets each division to play another division in the other conference. But what happens when one division is significantly better than the other? This year, the juggernaut NFC north played the AFC South, which is a league worst 26-38. Compare that to the AFC West which is a league best 38-26, and you wonder if the NFC South (who played them) weren’t as bad as they seem (nah who we kidding they suck). There’s only one set of teams with the same schedule you can use to get an accurate measurement, and that is the teams in your division.
TL;DR - Lions and vikings are obviously legit, but I wonder if NFC North records as a whole have been slightly inflated by playing a worse AFC division and don’t warrant changing the playoff format