Some thoughts on NFL alignment … Its the first full week of June and there really isn’t much going on around the NFL. However, there was recent article over on the ESPN college football page regarding a fantasy realignment for college football. And that got us thinking about something we have thought a fair amount of late and that relates to the current divisional alignment and scheduling in the NFL which really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. At the same time, we are under no illusions that anything is going to change in the NFL anytime soon, but it is kind of fun to talk about it and at least get the topic on the table.
For starters, we are not at ll fans of 4-team divisions in any sport. We understand that some owners would much rather finish 4th than 8th; but the fact is they are still going to be 5-12 and are still going to have a top 5 draft pick. But with small divisions there is way too much chance that a undeserving team gets a playoff spot or a better seed simply or a more deserving team doesn’t make the post-season or a worse seed simply because of geography. At the same time, as a lifelong Giants, I couldn’t really care less whether they play teams like Arizona or Carolina every three years or Kansas City or Tennessee every four years. We could even do without the two games with Dallas twice every year; there just too much of a distraction and you end up playing one of your home games in which half the crowd is cheering for the visitors every year. On the other hand, we would not mind seeing the Giants play true regional rivals like the Jets and Patriots every year.
In fact, there are several real potential rivalries across the country that get short shrift from the NFL. Think of the Rams and Chargers in LA; Arizona and Vegas; Dallas and Houston, Houston and New Orleans, Miami and Tampa Bay; Atlanta and Jacksonville, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Washington and Baltimore. And yet for all intents and purposes those teams play each other once every four years. I mean where’s the logic in having Miami play Buffalo twice a year and Tampa Bay once every four years.
Instead, what we actually get is an NFL schedule that far too often really just doesn’t make sense. This year, for example, Seattle plays two of its road games in the Pacific time zone, but four in the Eastern time zone. In fact, this year the Seahawks play more road games east of the Mississippi than in the west. Crazy. Especially at a time when pretty much the whole world should be doing everything it can to reduce its environmental footprint of which air travel is a major factor. (I say this as someone who will never be confused with an environmental crusader, but as someone who lives in a part of the world that for literally the first time in its history is under a smoke advisory from wildfires around the country!)
So just for fun we started playing around with potential NFL realignments. And what we came up with was a revised 4-division structure with 8 teams each based as mush as possible on the geographic distribution of the teams and designed to feature regional rivalries. of course, one could play at the margins pretty much all day. In this structure, for example, we would have liked to keep Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh in the same division, but at some point in time something had to give and in this particular case we opted to split those teams up with Buffalo and Pittsburgh ending up in the Northeast and Cleveland and Cincinnati in the Midwest.
The schedule: Again, there are multiple options for organizing the schedule around a revamped alignment. The simplest would have every team play a home-and-home series with their divisional opponents, plus three of out-of division games each year which could be structured in a myriad of ways. The one thing we would be tempted to do do, though, is have every team’s 17th game played on a neutral site, either internationally or at a college venue. If there is a major downside to that structure that there won’t be many top-notch inter-divisional games to feature in prime time.
The other model we’d look at would be something we’re calling a modified college format schedule. Each team would play its divisional opponents every season, but one year at home and the next on the road. There would then be a block of four games every year against teams in the other division in the same conference meaning every team plays the teams in the other conference division once every two years. Teams would also play a block of four games against teams in the other conference, meaning they would play every team in the other conference once every four years as they do now. And we’d give every team’s final two games to the TV people and let them come up with the most attractive matchups every year, although as above we’d play every team’s 17th game at a neutral site.
The playoffs: Again, there are all kinds of potential playoff structures that would be on the table. I guess it would make the most sense to have the top three teams in each division to qualify for the playoffs along with one or two next-best-record wild cards. Heck, we’d even give the league an 8th playoff team per conference so they could wring a few more TV bucks out of the networks. Of course, it will never happen because it makes just too much sense for the players and fans, not to mention the environment, but it may be something to start talking about.
| Northeast | Midwest | Southeast | West |
|---|---|---|---|
| New England | Minnesota | Atlanta | Seattle |
| NY Jets | Chicago | Carolina | LA Chargers |
| NY Giants | Green Bay | Jacksonville | LA Rams |
| Philadelphia | Detroit | Tampa Bay | San Francisco |
| Washington | Indianapolis | Miami | Las Vegas |
| Baltimore | Cleveland | New Orleans | Arizona |
| Buffalo | Cincinnati | Houston | Denver |
| Pittsburgh | Tennessee | Dallas | Kansas City |
