I too think the second bye will happen in lieu of a 17-game schedule. As for a 7-team per conference format, there are three ways to do it:Reaser wrote:Things I want and what's realistic are on opposite sides. I'd actually like to see less teams in the playoffs. Not going to happen.Rupert Patrick wrote:The only option would be a second bye week, which would artificially lengthen the schedule. Adding a week to the schedule would force the NFL back to opening the season on Labor Day weekend like they used to, which I never thought was a bad thing. It is highly doubtful the NFL will push the Super Bowl into the second week of February.
I for one do not want to see the playoffs expanded any further. Period.
The CBA is always about money/profits. They're running out of options and as we both said, the players aren't going to go for an expanded regular season (number of games). So that leaves expanded playoffs and/or an extra bye. Either creates more games to sell. Actual games with the playoffs. An extra week of games during the season with a second bye week. I see those are the two most likely to happen. I would guess that only one would happen and if I had to choose one I'd hope it would be the extra bye.
1 - Only the number one seed gets a bye, and in the Wild Card weekend, the two seed hosts the seven seed, the three seed hosts the six seed and the four seed hosts the five seed. The three winners and the number one seed move on to the Divisional round, where the one seed hosts the lowest seed and the highest seed hosts the other team. The Conference playoffs would take three weeks, just as it does now. This is the format they would most likely choose.
2 - The one, two and three seeds get a double bye. On the Wild Card weekend, four would host seven and five would host six. The following weekend, which we will call Wild Card 2, the only conference game would be the winner of these two games. The winner of this game would advance to the third week where they would face the top seed, and the second seed would host the third seed. The two winners would meet in Week 4 for the Conference Championship. The Conference playoffs would take four weeks instead of three. This is the format they would least likely choose because you would have a weekend with just one AFC and one NFC game between at best four and five seeds.
3 - The one and two seeds get a double bye, and the three, four and five seeds get a single bye. The Wild Card Weekend would consist of a single game per conference, six hosting seven. On the second weekend, the three seed would host the winner of this game, and the four seed would host the five seed. The two winners would advance to week three, where the number one seed would face the lowest seed, and the number two seed would face the other team. The two winners meet in week four in the Conference championship.
Of the three options, I don't like option one because you would have six postseason games in one weekend, and I think it would be overkill.
Option three is the one I like, but the double bye looks good on paper but I don't know if it would work for real. Another possibility for the third option is to put the first week six vs. seven seed game on Thursday Night/Friday Night for the AFC/NFC, and play the four seed vs. five seed games on Saturday/Sunday, and play the three seed/winner of six seed vs seven seed game on Monday/Tuesday night. In this scenario, a six or seven seed team would play a game on Sunday, then Thursday, then the following Monday. In this way, the conference playoffs could be done in three weekends, but I don't know if this would be doable.