Last year at this time, it was believed that NFL owners would vote to expand the playoffs, effective in 2015. The league wisely waited; after all, the fans of the teams that finished at No. 7 in each conference this past season would have been confused at a minimum by their team’s failure to make it to the tournament, flat-out TO’ed at worst.
But now that the 2015 league meetings are approaching, momentum has dissipated for an expansion of the playoff field from 12 to 14 in the coming season.
Speaking to reporters from the site of the annual gathering, which has returned to Arizona this year, Giants co-owner John Mara has acknowledged that playoff expansion is inevitable, via Jordan Ranaan of NJ.com. But Mara confirmed it won’t happen this year.
As PFT (those bastards) previously has reported, the NFL hopes to tie the extra playoff games to the Thursday night package, which will be up for bidding in 2016. So whether it’s CBS, NBC, FOX, ESPN, ABC, TNT, or some other network, the playoff games will be bundled with the Thursday night games in the hopes of bringing in even more billions than the NFL already generates.