NFL owners must reject proposal that would have rewarded Cowboys in 2022

A proposal will be debated by NFL owners this week that could dramatically alter the playoff structure. Let's hope it doesn’t pass.

Pitched by the Los Angeles Chargers, the proposal to change seeding in the playoffs would give a higher seed to a wild-card team that has at least four more wins than a division winner with a sub-.500 record.

If the proposal were in place last season, it would have moved the 12-5 Dallas Cowboys into the No. 4 seed and pushed the 8-9 Tampa Bay Buccaneers lower, even though they won the NFC South. The Cowboys would have received a home playoff game in the opening round.

Traditionally, the NFL has rewarded the division winner with a home playoff game. In the past 10 years, only a handful of division winners have made the playoffs with sub-.500 records. 

The proposed rule change is a "solution" to an uncommon problem: Only three times in NFL history has the above scenario occurred.

The league has unbalanced schedules, and teams don’t play the same opponents, so a sub-.500 division champion isn't necessarily a sign of a weak division.

It could also mean that the teams in the sub-.500 division played one of the stronger schedules outside a division, while the hypothetical wild-card team might have played a weaker schedule, inflating its win total.

The good news is that, according to NFL reporter Mark Maske of the Washington Post, the Chargers’ proposal is likely to fail.

There is no perfect way to fairly compare schedules given their imbalance. That is why the NFL should continue to reward teams for doing one of the things they can control: winning a division.