The NFL playoff picture can be pretty confusing to people who don’t know the sport as the playoffs don’t just go by the best records, it’s more complicated than that.

So, how do these playoffs really work then? Let’s analyze it. There are two conferences in the NFL, the AFC (American football conference) and the NFC (national football conference), each divided into 4 divisions, north, south, east, and west. Each division consists of 4 teams. 7 teams from each conference get into the playoffs in their respective conference, however, these seedlings are not always from best to worst. The top 4 seeds in each conference go to the winners of each of the 4 divisions, the 1 seed goes to the team with the single best record in the conference and that team gets a first round bye as well as home field advantage for their games, and the 2, 3, and 4 seed go to the other division winners based off of record from best to worst. The other 3 seeded teams are called wild card teams, these are teams that did not win their division, but still had a good enough record to get in. The first round is the wild card round, where we see the 2 seed play the 7 seed, the 3 seed play the 6 seed, and the 4 seed play the 5 seed. The winners of those games move on to the next round which is called the divisional round. The 1 seeded team plays the lowest remaining seed in the playoffs, so let’s say the 2 seed, 6 seed, and 5 seed all win. The 1 seed plays the 6 seed since that is the lowest remaining. The 2 seed and the 5 seed would then play each other and the winners of those two games would face one another in the conference championship. The winners of each conference championship both go on to play against each other in the Super Bowl.

So, how does parity ruin the playoffs? Simple: by providing easier roads through the postseason for teams playing in weak divisions.

We’re going to use last year’s playoff picture as an example. The NFC side saw the Lions at the 1 seed at 15-2, the Eagles at the 2 seed at 14-3, the Buccaneers at the 3 seed at 10-7, and the Rams at the 4 seed at 10-7. The Wild card teams were, the Vikings at the 5 seed at 14-3, the Commanders at the 6 seed at 12-5, and the Packers at the 7 seed at 11-6. Now, how is it that the 10-7 Buccaneers get higher seeding than the 14-3 Vikings, 12-5 Commanders, and the 11-6 Packers? The answer is simple but it really makes no sense. The Buccaneers won their division, the other three didn’t. Due to the Buccaneers being the only good team in the easiest division in football last year, they basically had a cakewalk to the playoffs. The Packers and Vikings are both in the same division as the lions, so therefore since the lions had the best record in the conference and won their division, the Vikings and Packers were stuck with wild cards because they got stuck with the best team in the league last year. The Buccaneers also made it in over the 12-5 Commanders because they were in the same division as the 14-3 eagles, who led the division and stuck the commanders in the wild card.

On the AFC side the top 4 were the 15-2 Kansas City Chiefs at the 1 seed, the 13-4 Buffalo Bills at the 2 seed, the 12-5 Baltimore Ravens at the 3 seed, and 10-7 the Houston Texans at the 4 seed. The wild card teams were the 11-6 Los Angeles Chargers at the 5 seed, the 10-7 Pittsburgh Steelers at the 6 seed, and the 10-7 Denver Broncos at the 7 seed. Again, the Texans got better seeding over the Chargers despite the Chargers having a better record. Due to the Chargers being in the same division as the Chiefs and not winning the division, while the Texans won their division very easily because it was very weak last year, while the Chargers’ division was very strong, causing them to just earn a wild card spot.

This playoff picture from last year alone proves that parity is ruining the playoffs. But how does it come into play in this year’s playoff picture? On the NFC side, we saw 14-3 Seattle Seahawks at the number 1 seed, the 11-6 Chicago Bears at the 2 seed, the 11-6 Philadelphia Eagles at the 3 seed, the 8-9 Carolina Panthers at the 4 seed, the 12-5 Los Angeles Rams at the 5 seed, the 12-5 San Francisco 49ers at the 6 seed, and the 9-7-1 Green Bay Packers at the 7 seed. Yes, the 8-9 Carolina Panthers were ahead of the last three teams I named, and why? Because they won an easy division even with a losing record and clinched the 4 seed. In week 18, the Panthers were 8-8 going against their rivals, the 7-9 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Panthers had lost that game, however, all they needed to get into the playoffs was for their division rivals, the Atlanta Falcons to beat their other rivals the New Orleans Saints, which the Falcons did win. That created a 3 way tie in the division that Carolina would inevitably win due to having the best record against other teams in their division. It’s insane how a team with a losing record can even make it into the playoffs, let alone be the 4 seed above not one, but two 12 win teams and a 9 win team, right? Well lets check out the AFC side of things.

Over on the AFC side, these conference playoffs saw the 14-3 Denver Broncos at the number 1 seed. The 14-3 New England Patriots at the 2 seed, the 13-4 Jacksonville Jaguars at the 3 seed, the 9-8 Pittsburgh Steelers at the 4 seed, the 12-5 Houston Texans at the 5 seed, the 12-5 Buffalo Bills at the 6 seed, and the 11-6 Los Angeles Chargers at the 7 seed, now we see the Steelers at 9-8 and at the 4 seed over teams that all have better records, again this is parity. The Steelers had an easy division this year and all they had to do was beat a broken division rival Baltimore Ravens team in week 18 to win the division. Both teams were 8-8 walking into this game and essentially whoever won got the division and the 4 seed in the playoffs. Needless to say, the Steelers won that easy division and got into the playoffs at a higher seed than two 12-win teams and an 11-win team. Makes total sense, doesn’t it?

These examples from this year’s and last year’s NFL playoffs prove that parity is ruining these playoff pictures. The NFL should change these rules and just take the top 7 teams in each conference and just order them by record. This would make for much more competitive and entertaining games for the fans and the NFL may even get more views if their playoffs are just stacked with the top 7 teams in each conference. All in all, the NFL playoffs are being ruined by parity and they should be fixed, as I previously stated, and made better for the fans all around the world.