Why NFL should never consider neutral sites for conference championship games

The New England Patriots' 10-7 AFC Championship Game win over the Denver Broncos turned into a winter wonderland in the second half. A Denver snowstorm blanketed the field and significantly impacted the play on it, at least in terms of what both teams were capable of doing on offense.

Passing became difficult. Moving the ball became a struggle. It was classic, old-school football. If you are into that sort of thing, it was great. 

But as offense and elite quarterback play have taken over the NFL, and as so much of the game is now analyzed from a fantasy points and gambling aspect, there has been some push back on whether or not snow games are actually fun to watch. Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio even asked the question of whether or not conference championship games should be played at neutral sites. 

It is a suggestion that used to get made consistently by Kansas City Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt. It was consistently rejected by the other owners. As it should be.

The NFL does not need more neutral-site games

Hosting a conference championship game is a reward, and a big one, for the top teams in each conference. Teams spend all year fighting for home-field advantage in the playoffs so the path to the Super Bowl can go through their city and stadium. All of it is an advantage, as it should be, for the top team in the conference.

The lack of travel is an advantage. The home crowd is an advantage. The potential elements are an advantage. And none of that should be changed. 

We already play the Super Bowl at a neutral site, and that is enough. If you start making that change for conference championship games because those games are too important to be decided by elements, where does it end? Why not extend it to the divisional round? Or just simply all playoff games? Are those games also not important? Of course they are. 

Teams spend their entire offseason constructing their squads and building their rosters centered around the home-field elements they play in, whether it be a fast track in a dome or a potential slop fest in the snow in December and January. If you start taking home playoff games away from teams, it dilutes the regular season and could potentially make even more regular-season games completely meaningless.

There would be less incentive to finish with the No. 1 seed. Otherwise important Week 17 and Week 18 games would become meaningless when it comes to playoff seeding. 

Any suggestion for neutral-site championship games after Sunday is the type of knee-jerk reaction commentary that has become all too common in the NFL these days. Every bad call, every loss, every variable that ever comes up in a game and potentially hurts a team is greeted with immediate calls for rule changes. 

Your team lost in overtime? Change the rules. And keep changing them when the new rule is not enough. 

A bad pass interference call cost you? Bring in replay. But get rid of the replay when that is inconsistently applied. 

A wild-card team had go to on the road to play a division winner with less wins? Change the format. Your team lost in the snow? Move everything indoors.

In this instance, a lot of football fans have become so used to big point totals — and, again, depend on them for fantasy sports and gambling purposes — that any game that does not have them is considered disappointing. Sometimes football is ugly. Sometimes it is a struggle. Sometimes the elements are a part of that. And that is okay. Even if it is in a big game. 

Denver and New England played all year for home-field advantage in that game. Denver ended up getting it and had the elements it probably wanted. Both teams had to play in it. New England simply made enough plays and enough good decisions to overcome it. That is what makes football beautiful.