Proposal for NFL scheduling

A buddy and I got to debating this idea this week as we tried to figure out various NFL playoff scenarios:

Should the NFL do like Major League Baseball and make the last three weeks of the season all division games? With all divisions having four teams, it'd be easy to set up the schedule that way. If baseball can have Yankees-Red Sox and Dodgers-Giants in the final week ...

One thing I think it would help is keeping track of playoff possibilities because all teams would have all of their games against the other divisions/conference out of the way, so those tiebreakers would be known going into the final stretch.

 

At the very least, it should be intra-conference play in Week 17. Having the Jets play Cincinnati works out somewhat but why should Washington be playing San Diego?

 

I'd like all teams playing six division games to end the season.

Of course, the NFL wants compelling matchups throughout the year, so they're going to spread those games out.

 

Major League Baseball does not make the final three weeks all division games.

 

Yeah, that would be a bit difficult, what with four of the divisions having five teams in them.

 

My point




spnited's head


It's not about the actual time frame. It's about scheduling divisional-race deciding games at the very end of the season. The fact baseball is played every day and football once a week obviously makes the respective time frames different.

 

I have no idea what you're taking about PB.

The last weekend in September -- week before MLB season ended -- seven of the 15 match-ups were interdivisional games. Final weekend, four interdivisional, 11 within division matchups.

 

With the unbalanced schedule in the AL, they practically do. The Rangers played all AL West teams after Labor Day with the exception of one series in Tampa Bay.

 

I agree completely. There should be three divisional games in the first eight games and the other three in the final eight. I also agree that every game in the final week should be a divisional game.

 

Case in point:

There are usually only 1-3 games that have significant meaning during the final week of the season. If you had Patriots-Jets, Packers-Vikings, Raiders-Broncos, Cowboys/Giants-Redskins/Eagles, among that mix it would get more interest even if technically, the game was meaningless from a playoff standpoint.

 

I would like the non-conference/cross-conference/AFC teams playing NFC teams/whatever the fuck you want to call them games all done by week 12 so that the final four games on every team's schedule theoretically had some playoff indications in terms of tie-breakers.