The Unfair NFL Schedule

The NFL packs 16 games onto one day in week 17 of the season. Probably, this is solely to avoid scheduling conflicts with bowl games, but it also serves to put teams on relatively equal footing heading into the postseason. Nobody has the advantage of playing a Thursday game in week 17, and heading into the playoffs better rested and with more time to prepare than their opponent. And at the end of the season, rest is pretty darned important.

So hey, a level playing field. That's nice. Problem is, it goes away once the postseason starts. The Cowboys and Jets will get 33% more time to prepare for their divisional games than will the Cardinals and Ravens. Does that seem like a lot? Well, it is. A two day swing isn't a minor issue, and it's not something the NFL would ever allow to happen in the regular season. A team wouldn't be scheduled for a Monday night game followed by a Saturday game, or play two Thursday games in a row, the second coming against a team getting only a four day week. But in the playoffs, hey, now it's okay?

The Jets and Cowboys won their games on Saturday, January 9th. Neither of them will play again until Sunday, January 17th. They get an eight day week to rest, heal and get ready before they're called on to play the top seeds coming off their hard-earned bye weeks. The Ravens and Cardinals, though, they played on Sunday the 10th, and they're both scheduled to play on Saturday the 16th. The others get eight days. These guys will get six. Particularly for the Cardinals, coming off Sunday's late game contest that went into overtime, this is tough.

A great deal of this is out of the NFL's control. The wild card round and divisional round have to be held across two days for maximum TV coverage. Ideally, perhaps, the divisional round game for the teams that win on Saturday could be held on Saturday of the next week, giving all the wild card week winners an even seven days to prepare. But it's much better for the teams hosting the divisional round games to have their schedule set up well ahead of time, and that's a legitimate concern as well. With those two circumstances, it's really impossible for the NFL to avoid situations in which there's a potential two game swing of this kind.

My suggestion would be this: let the onus of this problem fall onto the lowest seed, making it another, more subtle benefit of having a higher seed.

Consider the following: Schedule the games hosted by the #1 seeds in the divisional round for Saturday of that week with the #2 seeds hosting on Sunday. In the wild card round, schedule both #5 at #4 games for Saturday of that week, and both #6 at #3 games for Sunday. If the #3 seed wins on Sunday, they play the #2 seed the following week, which will also be on Sunday. Whichever team wins on Saturday will be playing again on Saturday. Everything is even, with a seven day week for both wild card winners. If the #6 seed wins, they're forced to play on Saturday with a short week, while the #4 or #5 seed gets two days more. Is it tough? Sure. But hey, you're the #6 seed. The tough breaks should fall to you.

And of course, that's exactly the way it's worked this year for the Baltimore Ravens. They were the #6 seed, and they're playing the short week. It's much less fair for the Cardinals, as a #4 seed, to be the team getting hosed. Reverse the scheduling order of the two NFC games this year, and everything comes out even.

This plan also eliminates the issue of one of the Saturday wild card winners immediately knowing which team they'll play the following week, while the other has to wait another day. With both #5 at #4 games on Saturday, neither winner will know who they play until Sunday.