Reseeding the NFL playoffs

If you were one of the thousands of NFL fans who thought the Seahawks upset victory over the Saints was a spectacular dose of excitement and fun in the playoffs this year, you’re wrong and should feel ashamed. The 7-9 Seahawks were clearly the most harmful thing to happen to the league since the start of the Super Bowl era (at least according to the TV football experts) and proves that the NFL must abandon its antiquated conference playoffs format in lieu of “having the best teams” play in January.

Obviously, the only solution is to develop an NCAA-basketball-style playoff, giving byes to the four best teams and awarding home-field playoff games to the next four strongest. If we ranked this year’s top NFL squads based on record and opponent win percentage (which would be the only fair tiebreaker), here’s what we’d get (teams listed with regular season record and opponent win percentage):

Much more exciting already – we’ve eliminated the boring Chiefs (10-6, but with a .414 opponent win percentage) and Seahawks entirely, and replaced them with the thrill-a-minute Bucs and Giants. Sure, the Eagles and Colts lose their home-field playoff game, and the Bears lose their first-round bye, but surely it’s all worth it to get that New York vs. New York first-round game, right?

Or perhaps we should go with a true NCAA style ranking, where we ignore records and actual team accomplishments in lieu of ESPN’s end-of-season opinion rankings? Here's what we'd get:

Again, a far superior system. We’ve replaced a boring Seahawks upset of the Saints with a massacre of the Giants down in New Orleans. The Bears still get screwed, but I’m pretty sure Baltimore is a bigger TV market to pander to than those pesky Chicago fans. And, there’s still a great chance you’ll get that Jets-Patriots second-round game, provided they could boot the Packers out of the playoffs early.

But why stop there? Why should the regular season decide who gets in the playoffs? Can’t we just let sports writers feel what the right matchups are? Let’s seed the playoffs based off the pre-season rankings, which is what we all really wanted to see anyways. Here's what we'd get (teams listed with pre-season ranking and actual regular season record):

Now that's a playoff we could all be proud of.