Giants co-owner John Mara doesn’t talk very much. When he does, he says plenty. Often to the website owned by the team that he owns. (Exclusive!)
Via Giants.com, Mara spoke recently about the inevitability that the playoff field will expand from 12 to 14 teams. It’s a change that some owners will reluctantly accept.
“I still would prefer to keep it the way it is, but I don’t think it’s the end of the world if we end up making the change,” Mara said. (We really need a better figure of speech for describing worst-case scenarios, unless anyone who uses that phrase looks forward to the eventual validation. “See, this, is the end of the world.”)
“We did not believe that there were any competitive reasons not to do it,” Mara added. “Not all of us are crazy about it, but competitively, the only thing that bothers us is the fact that only one team in each conference would get a bye, which gives them somewhat of an advantage. But we’ve seen in the past that the number one seed doesn’t always make it through to the Super Bowl.”
He’s right. The No. 1 seed loses surprisingly often in the divisional round of the playoffs. Which leads to the far more important potential complication of having the No. 2 seed face the No. 7 seed in the wild-card round. As Commissioner Roger Goodell explained last month to Peter King of TheMMQB.com, the No. 2 seed could end up hosting games for five straight weekends, if the No. 2 seed has back-to-back home games to end the regular season.
It would go like this: Week 16 at home; Week 17 at home; wild-card round at home vs. No. 7 seed; divisional round at home vs. No. 3, No. 4, or No. 5 seed; and conference championship game at home, if No. 1 seed loses in the divisional round.
The other problem arises from the placement of the extra two games in what would become a six-game wild-card weekend. The NFL is interested in Monday night, but a potential conflict looms with the NCAA championship game. And the NCAA has said it’s not moving.
The prevailing thought continues to be that the NFL will tie the extra playoff games to the Thursday night package in a one-plus-one-equals-three effort to get more money for both from whichever network picks up the extra games. With the Thursday night package going out for bid in 2016, that’s when the playoff change is likely to be made.
The owners who don’t like the idea will find solace in the enhanced opportunity to qualify for the postseason -- and in all the extra cash they’ll be making.