With the NFC West locked up, the L.A. Rams have nothing to play for in Week 18 and cannot be seeded lower than fourth in the playoffs. While the Rams are sitting pretty ahead of the NFC playoffs, not every team is as fortunate, which is why the NFL should consider changing its flawed playoff format.

The 14-2 Vikings will travel to Ford Field on Sunday night to face the 14-2 Lions for the division and the conference’s top seed. Whoever loses will drop to fifth in the conference and be forced to play on the road on Wild Card Weekend. Consider this fascinating nugget from Yahoo Sports writer Frank Schwab:

“The winner of Sunday night’s game will become just the ninth team in NFL history to finish a regular season with 15 or more wins. The loser will have the most wins of any wild-card team in history. The record was held by the 1999 Tennessee Titans, who had 13 wins.”

Either the Lions or Vikings will be screwed by the NFL’s playoff format this weekend. No matter your feelings about those teams, isn’t that a tad unfair?

If you were to scroll through social media today, fans were practically begging the league to reseed teams based on record. Yes, winning your division should matter, it just shouldn’t carry so much weight. The Seahawks had a 3-6 record at Lumen Field this season and would’ve hosted in Round 1 had they stolen the division from LA. Aside from the strike-shortened 1982 campaign, four teams have won their division with a losing record—Seahawks (2010), Panthers (2014), Commanders (2020) and Buccaneers (2022).

Amazingly enough, the Seahawks and Panthers advanced to the Divisional Round before falling short of the NFC Championship, but that’s beside the point. Winning the division should matter, yet some teams are being rewarded for a higher seeding than they deserve. There is no reason for a division winner with a losing record or a lesser record than their opponent to host a playoff game.

Instead, a team winning their division should be guaranteed a playoff spot and the seeding is then rearranged based on record. That would make the most sense out of any solution. This is what the NFC standings and first-round matchups would look like if teams were seeded by record:

1 – Lions (14-2)

2 – Vikings (14-2)

3 – Eagles (13-3)

4 – Commanders (11-5)

5 – Packers (11-5)

6 – Rams (10-6)

7 – Buccaneers (9-7)

Wild Card Round

While this isn’t a perfect solution and the Rams got punished with a trip to Philadelphia in this scenario, it’s more fair. Imagine if the Rams and Seahawks were the ones playing for the division and the top seed. I know there would be fans in the comments pushing for the exact changes I mentioned above. None of this stuff seems to matter until it’s your favorite team going through it.