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NFL May Tweak Playoff Format

Posted on: Saturday, 2 February 2008, 06:00 CST

PHOENIX -- NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said the league may consider changing the way teams are seeded in the playoffs, allowing wild-card teams with better records to be seeded ahead of division champions.

Goodell said there were nine games in the final two weeks of the 2007 season that had no impact on at least one of the teams' postseason seeding, but had wild-card teams been able to move up to third or fourth seeds, those games would have had significance.

"It could have affected two playoff games this year," Goodell said at his annual Super Bowl news conference. "The Pittsburgh game could have potentially been in Jacksonville, and I think the Tampa-Giants game, potentially, could have been in New York.

"You qualify if you win your division, but I think what we'd like to look at is if a wild-card team has a record better than a division winner, should that give the advantage to the wild-card team that has the better record? That will probably be our short-term focus."

Goodell addressed a wide range of topics, including the Spygate scandal in which he fined New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick $500,000 and the club $250,000 and stripped the team of a first-round draft pick because they illegally videotaped signals of New York Jets coaches from the sidelines.

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Goodell highlights -- On whether the videotaping taints the Patriots' run of four Super Bowls and why he destroyed the tapes after making his ruling: "I don't think it taints their accomplishments. There was no indication that it benefited them in any of the Super Bowl victories. (Destroying the tapes) was the best way to make sure that the Patriots had followed my instructions. The action we took was decisive and sent a loud message to not only the Patriots, but every NFL team that you should follow the rules."

--On the impasse between NFL Network and cable systems such as Time Warner:

"Unfortunately, there aren't any new negotiations. Very few of the cable operators, two or three of the largest cable operators, want to put it on the sports tier, which we don't believe is the right thing for our fans. They're just finding another way which they can charge our consumers more money. We think it should be available on a broader basis."

--On whether the NFL can modify its cumbersome definitions for disability so retired players with dire needs can receive funding for their disabilities:

"Yes. We have made some changes that I think will take some of the red tape out and make the process, hopefully, simpler. It will get to the result that we are looking for, which is to have an effective, responsive disability program. We just spent four or five hours with Gene Upshaw last week, talking about further changes in our disability program. This is not unusual just to our industry. Disability programs are complicated. You see these come up with veterans -- lengthy delays. I think that any delay, though, is unfortunate. Our players, who helped build this game, deserve to have a system that is responsive, professionally done and independently done."

--On the owners opting out of the collective-bargaining agreement in November, which could lead to an uncapped year in 2010 and possible labor strife:

"These issues don't get resolved by making comments publicly, but rather sitting at the negotiating table and working, and addressing the issues that we may have. Our business has changed over the last several years. The cost of operating an NFL franchise, not only in labor costs that are 60 percent of the gross, but the cost in stadium operations and building stadiums, operating them and capital improvements, these are all additional costs that we didn't have just several years ago, and I think they need to be recognized in this labor agreement, and the union has done that."

Source: The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Missouri)

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