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The National Football League is reportedly considering a major change to its current playoff format, CBS Sports reports.
The league is reportedly considering rewarding teams with top seeds based more on their winning percentage than solely winning their division. The NFL currently grants home games to division winners regardless of their team records, which has led to several Wild Card Round matchups in which the visiting lower seed team has a higher winning percentage this weekend.
The Minnesota Vikings entered the playoffs as the No. 5 seed in the NFC after they finished second in the NFC North behind the No. 1 seed Detroit Lions, despite having a 14-3 record, which was better than both the No. 3 seed NFC South Division champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers and No. 4 seed NFC West Division champion Los Angeles Rams, who will host them in the Wild Card Round Monday (January 13) night, at 10-7.
The Washington Commanders enter as the No. 6 seed with a 12-5 regular season record, but will be the road team in their matchup against the Buccaneers on Sunday (January 12).
The Los Angeles Chargers finished with a regular season record of 11-6 and were the No. 5 seed prior to their blowout road loss to the No. 4 seed AFC South Division champion Houston Texans, who finished the season at 10-7, Saturday (January 11) night. The NFL had previously changed its playoff format from 12 teams (six for each conference) to 14 teams (seven for each conference) prior to the 2020 season.
The previous change made it so only the No. 1 seeds in the AFC and NFC would get a first-round bye, while the older format had two teams earning byes, and added two more Wild Card Round games to the previous total of four.