One of the consequences of the Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions playing for the top seed tied for the best record in the conference is that one of the teams will end up with the second-best record in the conference but the fifth seed and a road game against a team with a worse record and that may have had the additional advantage of resting their starters week 18.

That is a tremendous disadvantage for the more accomplished team in the regular season.

Even worse, the NFC North is a much stronger division than either the NFC West or South, which means the Vikings and Lions built their better records against tougher division opponents. And yet all this yields the loser of Sunday night’s game a big disadvantage in the playoffs.

Why? Because the league continues with an antiquated division-based format to determine which team represents each conference in the Super Bowl.

The Antiquated Division Format

Ninety two years ago, the NFL first established divisions, creating two divisions with five teams each. The idea was to make scheduling easier by grouping divisions into eastern and western, to make team travel easier and less expensive, and also create rivalries by having division teams play twice. It also created a structure for a championship game played between the winner of each division at the end of the season.

There were a lot of oddities and abnormalities when it came to scheduling in the early days of the NFL, as teams played different numbers of games in a season, some played against amateur teams, among other things. By 1936 a 12-game set schedule was established, which necessitated some teams playing more than once a season given there were only nine or ten teams in these years- another reason for division teams to play twice.

Even as the league expanded, the division structure was maintained, but more divisions added. By the time of the AFL-NFL merger in 1970, there were 26 teams in six divisions and two conferences. Playoff structures changed to create division champion playoffs and wild card teams to create more playoff teams, the schedule went from 12 to 17 games and the league went from a time when teams were sold for $2,500 and championship games were moved because of poor ticket sales in some areas, to an era were tickets are sold for $2,500, championship games are always sellouts and are the most watched event of the year with hundreds of millions of viewers, and NFL football is the undisputed national sport that dominates every region of the country, where it once was largely concentrated in the Midwest.

With all those changes, the rationale behind the division structure has been obliterated.

For example, airplane travel has become a bit more commonplace, making team travel much easier and the cost is a drop in the bucket in a league that generates over $20 billion in revenue annually.

Rivalries exist in and out of divisions and there is no need for teams to play twice each season to maintain them, just as Michigan and Ohio State don’t need to play twice each season to maintain their rivalry. It’s also true that some division games meant to be rivalries have gone stale making them less appealing to fans twice a year.

Lastly, as the league has expanded, become national, and conferences adopted, the division structure has been outgrown. The playoffs are designed around producing conference champions and the division structure distorts that both in playoff format and regular season schedules.

What Changes Should be Made?

Given all of the changes in the league since the division structure and schedule was established, a new conference-based approach should be adopted to replace the division structure which would make the regular season results more relevant and exciting by largely eliminating many of the meaningless games toward the end of the season and teams resting starters, and creating a fairer, more straightforward playoff seeding system.

Teams Seeded According to Record

The first change is simply to seed teams in each conference according to their record. Period. Tie-breakers can be similar to current rules. The top seeds get the home games just as the current system and highest seed plays lowest seed the same as the current system too, with the higher seed being the home team. First seed can get the bye week too, to accommodate the seven team format. This eliminates the distortion of teams with worse records getting higher seeds due to the division structure.

Create a Conference Schedule

The second change is to create a conference schedule where teams in each conference play each other once. That sets 15 of the 17 game regular season. Each year home/away between teams is alternated. For the last two games, one could be against the same seed in the other conference from the previous season, and the last can be a random matchup against a different team from the other conference.

That largely eliminates strength of schedule inequalities that are produced by the division scheduling format, with the exception of the two inter-conference games. But the main scheduling format is for every conference team to play each other once each season. Fans and season ticket holders get to see more matchups, more players, and quite possibly more rivalries each season and fewer duds with teams resting starters.

My guess is it also creates more opportunities for prime-time worthy games to be played in prime time and more equitable travel schedules among conference teams over the course of the season.

Producing a Better Conference Champion

The goal of every team, every year, realistic or not, is to win the Super Bowl. The regular season is all about qualifying for the playoffs and getting the advantages of a top seed. The playoffs are all about each conference producing a champion to represent the conference in the Super Bowl.

But the current system for producing conference champions has some flaws that distort the outcome and playoff seeding. This season a 14-win team will hit the road as a wildcard, with the home team likely having four fewer wins and having rested their starters week 18. How is that fair?

Other years teams from weak divisions and/or facing weak divisions by virtue of the division scheduling format have a significant strength of schedule advantage that distorts their regular season record and gives them an unfair advantage in the playoffs.

And sometimes a team barely over .500, or even below, makes the playoffs as a division winner when a team with a better record from another division doesn’t.

All these situations create situations where better teams don’t make the playoffs and make the long, 17-game regular season results less relevant and distort a conference meritocracy from prevailing in determining conference playoff teams and seeding on a more equal basis.

Moving to a conference-based system eliminates all that and would be better for the league.