The 14-3 Vikings are the No. 5 seed.
And that's actually okay
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That Sunday car wreck between the 14-2 Detroit Lions and the 14-2 Minnesota Vikings ought to be instantly shortlisted for the Best Game of the NFL Season Prize.* I hope you saw some of it. It was as intense and hard-hitting a regular-season contest as I can remember — and the final score (31-9 Detroit) comes nowhere close to reflecting how tight that game felt deep into the second half. It was a 17-9 slugfest heading into the fourth quarter.
Result: The Lions not only win the NFC North but emerge with the No. 1 seed in the conference, and they get a precious first-round bye — especially important considering how battered their roster is right now.
The Vikings? Despite posting the second-best record in the NFC at 14-3, they fell to the No. 5 seed with that loss and have to hit the road for the treacherous Wild Card round, playing the Rams in Los Angeles next Monday night. Should Minnesota escape that game, one of the remaining possibilities is…a return trip to Detroit for the divisional round.
That’s crazy unfair. The Vikings had a great regular season and by record should be a 2 or 3 seed, depending upon tiebreakers with the Eagles, who also went 14-3. (I didn’t do the tiebreaker math, since it doesn’t matter.)
So Minnesota is getting cooked for having the temerity to exist in the same division as Detroit.
We’re good with that.
As proof that this weirdo system works, I give you the first paragraph up above. The ferocious nature of the Lions-Vikings game, a regular-season contest played at full playoff tilt at a rocking Ford Field in downtown Detroit, was the direct result of it mattering so much.
The division title alone was worth fighting for, since in each conference the NFL awards the top four seeds — and first-game home-field advantage in the playoffs — to its four divisional champions. Unlike the NBA, which virtually erased the importance of such things when it reformatted its playoff system to a straight record-based seeding process, winning your division in the NFL still matters quite a bit.
Even if you just barely eke it out, it matters. The Tampa Bay Bucs had to stage a major rally at home (they scored two TDs in the fourth quarter to put away New Orleans) in order to secure the NFC South title and a home game in the Wild Card round. In the end, the Atlanta Falcons team chasing Tampa lost their final game, so the Bucs would have backed in anyway. But it made for great Week 18 theater.
The NFL has stood firm on this, at least so far. The league’s owners are committed to the idea that divisions should matter — and they’re not wrong. The Ravens, Steelers and Bengals all play each other twice a season. That’s a gauntlet. This year, the No. 1-seeded Chiefs ran away with the AFC West, but the Chargers won 11 games and the Broncos 10 in that same division. Detroit and Minny were powerhouse clubs in the NFC North, but Green Bay also went 11-6.
You win these divisions, you earned it. And there should be a reward for that.
It’s never going to be perfect. If you choose to reward division winners, some other very worthy team is going to get left in the cold because it happened to be in the wrong division in the wrong year.
Example: The Rams, Bucs and Texans are all playing Wild Card home games. Each of them went 10-7. That feels a little, I don’t know…squidgy. Tampa Bay gets to host the 12-5 Washington Commanders. Just saying.
But here, too, the NFL is probably on the right side of the bigger picture. First, these teams don’t all play identical schedules, so directly comparing records isn’t as useful as you’d think. The Lions and Vikings this season played the NFC West (in a down year) and the AFC South, in which only one team was above .500. Their records are best compared to one another, as they basically played the same schedules.
Second, the division stuff is the closest thing the league has to rivalry. Divisions are still largely geographical, and if not, they’ve at least got some historical heft. (Dallas is still in the NFC East, but it works.) Rivalries are cool. Rivalries need to happen. And while a few happen organically, most of them are the result of teams playing each other year after year, twice a year, trying to win the same division and get the same prize.
So yes, the Vikings got hosed, relatively speaking. That’s going to happen sometimes. The alternative, though, is to go to a straight seeding system and assert that the NFL’s divisions no longer matter. Speaking as a longtime NBA fan who witnessed that league’s switchover, I can tell you that although it may feel more reasonable, something actually does get lost in the transition.
What gets lost? You saw it Sunday in Detroit.
(* Best Game of the NFL Season Prize does not actually exist. But it should.)
Lions fan here. Yesterday I felt pretty strongly that the NFL should adjust the seeding approach. I find your argument compelling, especially due to the (potentially broad) schedule variance.
I wonder if there could be a hybrid approach, e.g., if you’re a wild card that wins 4+ more games than a division winner you jump them in the seed order. I just checked and that approach would make the Vikings the 3 seed. I think the teams would have wanted last night’s game just as much due to the bye being on the line.
We will likely debate the NFL seeding process ad infinitum, and re-debate it when the formula inevitably changes again…
One indisputable fact is that was one helluva game last night…and Dan Campbell has been the cultural architect of one helluva metamorphosis in The Motor City…can’t wait for the playoffs to begin!!