Growing up, I always wanted to be a sports journalist. After getting an inside look at the long hours and unpredictable schedule, I decided on being a sports fanatic and a PR professional. Sports Sunday is Justin Case You Were Wondering’s once-a-week break from talking social media and PR to talk sports. Game time!
The Atlanta Falcons got screwed. Sure, they had the NFC’s No. 1 seed and the road to the Super Bowl went through the Georgia Dome. But what did that really get the Falcons? A divisional round playoff game against Green Bay, arguably the hottest team in the NFL right now. A team that was an Aaron Rodgers concussion away from potentially winning the NFC North and earning the No. 2 seed.
Meanwhile the Packers biggest rivals from the windy city got to host Seattle, a team that finished the season 8-10 — just let me point out the obvious; that’s two games under .500. The Seahawks only made it to Soldier Field because they were able to pull of a win for the ages over New Orleans, helped in large part by the fact they took on the defending Super Bowl champs at home, despite winning their division with a pathetic 7-9 record.
Should Seattle even have made the playoffs? Sure they should have. They won their division. And all division winners should qualify. Even the winner of the NFC West, which got to play the worst conference in the AFC (AFC West) and still couldn’t field a team with a .500 record.
I’m fine with Seattle making the playoffs. But no way in the world should they have been the No. 4 seed and hosted a first-round playoff game. The Saints had four more wins than Seattle. Green Bay had three more. And yet both had to go on the road to stay alive while the Seahawks got awarded for being below average. It almost seemed like some kid from Seattle was playing a Madden season on Xbox, went 7-9, started the game over and just went straight to the playoffs, slotting his beloved Seahakws as the No. 4 seed.
Sure, I thought the home game was a farce. But the bigger issue here that the NFL must consider is that by not reseeding, they are not providing conference winners with what the No. 1 seed is supposed to provide — the easiest road to the Super Bowl. It doesn’t mater which of the NFC teams you or I think is better. Atlanta won 13 games and earned the top seed in the NFC. But because there was no reseeding, the Falcons had to play a much tougher opponent than Chicago, who lucked into a matchup with Seattle. Remember, even after winning a playoff game, the Seahwaks still didn’t have a winning record. I have to keep saying and typing that to believe it.
A reseeding system is never going to be perfect. But if the NFC had adopted one this year and seeded by record once the six teams had qualified, this is how the seeds would have looked — 1. Atlanta, 2. Chicago, 3. Philadelphia, 4. New Orleans, 5. Green Bay, 6. Seattle. Those who I have heard argue against reseeding have said, “But look, the Seahawks were able to knock off the defending champs. It’s like March Madness and proves the NFL has parody.” Let me take those two arguments one at a time.
First, a big reason Seattle beat the Saints is because they got to play at home. If the game had been in New Orleans, or as the scenario I painted above indicates, Seattle had gone to Philly, it’s likely they would have been going home after the first round, but not to play another game. That said, point two — if the Seahawks had won game one, they would have traveled to Atlanta to play this weekend, while the Bears would have hosted the Saints v. Packers winner. This situation would have been much more beneficial to the Falcons, who again earned the right to have every benefit possible by winning the No. 1 seed. As for the comparison to March Madness, one of the greatest parts of the NCAA tourney are the upsets. But if a Cinderella makes it to the Sweet 16, you know it beat two teams seeded much higher. They don’t seed the conference tourney champs from the Summit League, for example, ahead of an at large team that went 30-4 from one of the big six conferences.
In the end, I’m not sure how much it would have mattered. The way Rodgers is playing right now, it will be hard for anyone to beat Green Bay. And the Packers may have knocked off Atlanta in the above scenario anyway. But that’s beside the point. What the NFL needs to realize is that a playoff system that sends an 8-9 team to play the NFC’s No. 2 seed while an 11-6 team heads to play the No. 1 seed is a broken system.
The NFL is the greatest professional sports league we have and Roger Goddell and team don’t need to do a lot to fix things. But that doesn’t change the fact that the city of Atlanta, the Falcons and their fans got a raw deal. And losing to Green Bay as the No. 5 seed — the lowest remaining seed — while Philadelphia headed to Chicago would have been a lot easier, and a lot more fair, pill to swallow.
